Jack Xi: “Why You Should Risk Less Caution Today”

Or: after twelve tasks Herakles meets his ghost

1. You saw a strange bird and you laughed.
2. You found peace in kneeling for young eyes and trees.
3. You wish to sit down.
4. You haven’t seen them in a long time.
5. Count on both hands. Measure half your lifetime.
6. You built towers with notched blocks from three different games.
7. You have herds of red goodwill losing bones in your skull.
8. To be posthuman was always the dream.
9. When you look up at migrating flocks, think “longing.”
10. Looking up at wide buildings, you sometimes will cry.
11. But now your organs lounge soft behind the blinds of your ribcage.
12. There was too much freshwater where your boytoy lay whistling.
13. So much water he was found, so lost to you.
14. You tell yourself it is likely you won’t be found.
15. There was no water where you were sitting.
16. They’ll still find out. But we double and glow.
17. We are stronger than our fathers.
18. We are strongest when we fail them, but it never feels that way.
19. The soil here is jealous of whole feet and new cloth.
20. Bacteria from geysers wrote their names in flaming trails.
21. You shovelled and shovelled, but the horns still showed.
22. This planet is boiling slowly out of its skin.
23. You had nothing sweet for breakfast.
24. Both your hands are too cold.

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Jack Xi (they/he) is a queer Singaporean poet and member of the writing collective /Stop@BadEndRhymes (stylised /s@ber). They’ve appeared in several poetry journals and anthologies. Find out more at jackxisg.wordpress.com.