[ START, STOP. ]

Poetry by Joanna Deng

you said you were a disease, so

you ate the oranges we
laced into your veins
on that rotting mattress
with its pudding pulled
your flesh-etched eyes macerated above
the makeshift hospital gown
we cut from a linen sheet.

you told me once that you hated goodbyes
because they were like periods,
and you preferred commas,
run-ons,

nine lives,
no, ten,

as you kept hold of the rain in February
and those rinds rotting on your window sill
again
again,

again ,

you tried to beat light into your eyes
until there was nowhere left for it to bend because
there is no comma,
if there’s no more sentence

[ . ] so let us bag each other in clotted crimson
and pump each other’s hearts drunk with hope
my dear
as I peel you another clementine.