The guy drinking Seven Tails on the rocks scoops a lemon from his glass and lets the flea live.
What else is mercy but a way of wedging between worlds—the invitational body first
submerged, then lifted and let through, D’Angelo on in the background the whole time singing
Lord knows how far that I and I will fall behind. And Jesus Christ, he says next—not D’Angelo.
Not Jesus (at present he is nowhere to be found). But the guy with the Seven Tails—a nickname
which, when repeated enough, becomes biblical, whips you beastly into, yes the past, but also the
multiverse of all the pain you’ve ever caused. It isn’t saying sorry that’s hard. It’s knowing it
isn’t enough. Jesus Christ, a six-hour flight, says Seven Tails. And I think about Jesus learning
of air travel. How much faster he could’ve got home or at least somewhere he belonged. And I
don’t mean in the footprint of God. It’s not the flea’s salvation either. Poor guy, wings stripped,
slipping aimless now in a desert of marble. Maybe this wasn’t about mercy at all.
Kirsten Shu-ying Chen is the author of Light Waves (Terrapin Books). A MacDowell fellow, Chen has been a finalist for the Autumn House Press Chapbook Prize, and a semi-finalist for Tomaz Salamun Chapbook Prize by Factory Hollow Press, among others. Her work has twice received Pushcart and best-of-the-net nominations and has been published or is forthcoming in Bear Review, PANK, Hanging Loose, NoDear and elsewhere. She lives in New York. www.kirstenshuyingchen.com
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