My Bucket List
by Tenny Liu
To work on the seventh day
then destroy all I have
worked for. To prison me
in a golden cage. To toil
as somebody's saint slave.
To think and criticize until
they scalp my skull, skin my skin,
turn me back into the rib
of a boring doll, who has no gut
to eat an apple. To lie down
with a serpent, as if
I care—I do care.
It is good, and it is so.
To unname beasts, birds
and fish. To beg them to name
me, as ruff, croak, or chirp.
To know them by forgetting
their names. To take over
their burden of being called, being
summoned, being named as boar,
treefrog, or sooty bushtit. To answer
masters’ call at service, at half
past three in the morning, sinking
in the middle of the barren moor.
It is good, and it is so.
To be a pigeon then break
my own wings—no more
flying, no more
wandering. To dash
my body onto the rocky
cliff for bleeding and to soak
each feather wth gravity. Then
to drop into the ocean; to be
a salmon without scale, a turtle
without shell. To suffocate
underwater with a gill.
It is good, and it is so.
To be dead, not alone.
To drown light down
in the dark. To render things
that are Caesar's to him,
because I shall render mine to me.
To surrender to a breath between
day and night, a space between
eternity and a glimpse, a tomb
or a womb to sleep in peace without
knowing and living at all.
It is my first day, and finally
could I rest