from China Cowboy
by Kim Gek Lin Short

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Run


In my dream I am running. I turn around and look behind me there is the cabin and below it dug ground, a place where my death could be. Duck down, Butterfly. But it is only me. I’ll dig her a hole too. Which little box do you want, I ask, we have two of this one left and I shake the coffin like it’s cereal the kind I won’t eat. But I cannot answer. I am looking at myself running. There is something blue coiled around my ankles. It is my panties. I fall.





Sex and Run


Sex with Ren is one of two ways both end the same I see semen loose warm stream dewlap my hair saltwhite smeared back alive almost like when I will race home one day out of breath the screen door broken shuts too fast behind me slams and then Opens Closes Opens Closes on pure momentum begetting sucked against away the jamb self-willed.





Knots


Are you dead? I ask my parents. Bu, they say. Then why are you see-through? I don’t believe them. They tell me I must try. I reach up. I grab with my hands but where I pull his chest hair knots. After that I am obsessed with knots. I invent new knots. I name them. I groom them. I practice unknotting. When I have knotted and unknotted what’s outside me I’m an expert I unknot what’s tied in me. It’s my parents. I’m crazy boutcha, I say in my most western accent. And my mother I know is proud of me, even though she can’t show it, it’s the tattoo makeup she had done by that student for free. She is wearing the white she wore when Poh Poh died. Only now it is transparent. Now it is my body. Holding its pee. When he’s done. Pissing itself.





Nebulizer


A few years after I stop it is decided I am not breathing. Ren pops the transoms in the cabin but I stay somewhere between. On a hunch he puts an old black and red jockstrap to my face, pushes the yellow cup against my nose (the warm of yeast). He tapes toilet roll to broken mouth retainer to hard semen-gauzy sock, it goes in my crotch. But I stay away. At first there is little air. I open searching and then a closing. An event. Something recent but long ago, I forget who, it happens. I breath, there is enough. I get scared. I make promises. In my new life I will be white heat, pure I will rise. I make promises. In my new life I will be swept ash, light I will rise. I get scared. Please in my new life I will mend this rubber seal my soul, a swollen rubber place. Please I am scared. In my new life I will—he pulls the nebulizer off my face, a sunk space, it stretches. Please it is so much like hell. I promise. In my new life.





My Country Superstar Humility


Where did she go? My parents will always wonder. Did she wear her cowboy boots to school? Did she wear her leather gloves that day? Did she color her hair under her hat? They ask my parents for a description they ask, do you describe her hair as piney or black-needles or spray-stiff-sticks? Where did she go? My parents will always wonder.

When I can no longer sing I use a primitive method of signing in which whatever I point to is prefixed by “fuck” and suffixed by “hurt.” I point to my mouth. He translates, fucking mouth hurts. I point to my crotch. He translates, fucking cunt hurts.

My hair is piney like black needles spray-stiff-sticks I could slash my wrists with this hair these leather gloves protect me. I could trip over this hair brushing it these boots protect me. I wear this hat out of consideration for my parents out of my country superstar humility.

Time to wash. I point to my boots to my black cowboy hat. Cowgirls need washing everyday, he says. I point to my boots to my black cowboy hat to a place where my voice used to be is not outside me. I slide through steel bars into steaming wet it is easy. I wash my boots my black cowboy hat my gloves burl-slick stained I scrub. I no longer sing. I splash babbles with this boiling with my mouth when I no longer sing. I unsing. This is my country superstar humility, I point to it, under the under. I’m splayed, can you shut me? I’m hushed, can you hear me?