VICTORIA CHANG

Dear P. XXIII

The sun sends its wires of heat onto your
face, stops on your cheek, coiling into a
present tense of red. I am a hungry bird
that murmurs love, that murmurs more.
When I see red, it is not blood or war. It is
not the spur on the point of fish hooks.
The red here is a tributary towards you.
It is a ruby of lunar impact. A stone of
sixty sides. I want to drink the ruddy rust,
taste your cheek that feels like church
against my lips, your terrestrial material,
the softest my mouth has found—this skin
that dies each year, this sheen that blights,
that barriers me from you.