Postcards from the end of the world
by Tati Zhang Su
I.
I am heading west, toward the last iteration
of myself I can recognize. Saltwater
in my palms, strands of dark sugar kelp
pooling at my ankles as I wade.
A black dog
across the shoreline. Cascade of gulls.
A clear wind. My own wet face.
II.
She hands me a blue drink tasting of hell.
Oceana. Two kids with a pitted brown man
hook-nosed and aging silent
to her tumble of pearl abundance. Oceana
alternates between you’re so beautiful &
I'm so drunk
leaves me under the worn tiki umbrella
of a gay bar, listening for the sound
of waves buried deep in places without
names.
III.
海 or sea is written
as every and water. But if I look
more closely, the center
of 海 is 母 for mother.
IV.
I am heading west, or maybe
I’ve always been there. Another crest
shoulders its way beneath the overhang
where I stand.
I dig my heels into the sand
strewn with the pale white hearts
of wave-worn shells. Once
you called me 废物, a waste
spent so many nights praying
that I would one day become useful.
You still miss me, you still ask
how I’m doing. I’m still here
V.
What it means to go west:
it means the light is mostly fading. The people
are alright sometimes. It means the water
is mostly cold. That my mother’s understanding
of me will never evolve
past her reading of a holy book
the uncertainty of an existence swung
in any direction toward home.
It means there was once no gravity.
But here the waves bluster forth in jade succession.
Here they curl and wrinkle ashore.
VI.
I find an abalone shell caught in rockweed
off the coast of San Pedro. Near perfect
save for the cloudy remnants of
a creature long gone. The ocean spares none
and accepts all she can hold. Impartial
and immense, enough to swallow
what gods themselves could not stomach
or call their own.
In the distance, a weakened sun approaches
crowds gathering to watch it slip
down the rough red maw of a growing tide,
relieved of its radiance.
In the dark I call toward the water, 母亲.
In the dark only a distant roar returns.