Poetry by Haolun Xu

        ​ Jo Guldi CC



A Man Eats His Last Meal Tonight

A man eats his last meal tonight.
He eats it alone,
because his teeth are ugly when he’s afraid. 

It's his mother’s dish
who is far far away

a soft bowl of bok-choy with rice.
She was always worried it tasted bad. 
He realizes now, 
that was never the point.

He hugs it close to his chest, 
and holds the fork like he did as a child.

He doesn’t call his parents. 
They’d cry in a beloved way.
That’s not, he believes, what love is for.

​



GIRAFFES EMBRACING ON NOAH'S ARK

I do not miss those // translucent palms growing like tricycles 

outside the apartment from the old country // I do not miss the sound of my mother // 
whose grace has yet to rectify her becoming, her battle each day 

But I do miss that proud hawthorn tree that grew to such happiness // 
and how we shared its shade // 

You carried gallons of water, and I held the end // as the children // 
emerged from the shoddy place of which // we'll never give up.

I talk carefully at night to a tiger // that is in the shape of a lobster.
This is longevity, my greatest companion // and you said time is your best friend. 

Your pride, your abstinence // I am so proud of these days // 
and how you won't touch // even me // or heaven // or our mutual and lovely friends

because this one home, is one hill // and this is all that really matters // 

so when the hospitals start panicking // 
and we fear // the flood alerts in February, I think // 

Even when I'm angry // and I am // despite all legacies for parity,
sleeping on the floor tonight // until dawn

The separation between us // is just a lone Beethoven suite
you forgot to show me // the week before.

​



Strange And Dangerous Heat

I've come to undo my alignments. I think about the pride in this, 
with my ass stooped over in the air. Some great god can hear me 

but I can’t hear his answers since there are too many eyes 
watching the way my forehead touches the floor.

Eventually they'll forget. 
Good, I think it’s a shame to be known as this. 

Now I just lay down and die. I’m on my back and 
I hope God doesn’t work  horizontally because I’m just a puddle, 
and it works like this, living through the opposite of rain.

I'm fixing how well I stood. Demolition of an altar, I think a strength is a lie, 
and still, someone enhances my beauty each day and doesn’t give it back. 

The word cute is the opposite of divinity. God 
never finds anyone cute so someone needs to tell the others to stop 
because I’m too busy pulling dandelions from my throat.

Every night I count the hours before I turn into a blanket. 
In the cover of privacy, I grow mushrooms. 

I stink, I love, but I do not hurt or heal. My body is a nowhere,
and someone tells me that no true forest is abandoned 
as that is its nature. 

Later I drive off the road because I see a deer dying on the street. 
When I crawl out of the wreckage, I notice it’s only a cardboard box, 

soaping wet and growing mushrooms. 
But this too, I know now, is an animal.

​

Haolun Xu was born in Nanning, China. He immigrated to the United States in 1999 as a child. His writing has appeared in New Ohio Review, Meridian, Bellevue Literary Review and more. He currently reads for Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review.

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