Read an Excerpt
Spend
seven years inside no visitors and four hours traveling north for one
hour per month with him no more no
phone calls four men watching always
just not the man you want Last fall the pear trees in the courtyard refuse
to ripen—In her verses there are no sounds none—spend a month between
chair and bed without sleep then
two three four five catch
the infection from that skinny guard now it won’t shake—in my eyes
he has always been and will always be an awkward diligent poet—That summer of
crackdown nearly thirty years ago I
bought a bag of apples
one’s malformed tumorous a second head almost a second whole self
inside pushing out skin bulging near breaking—
Travel four hours north
for one hour per month with him no more. Never. Four men watching always
just not the man you want.
To X
(Written on This Device You Made)
"On the last day of September, a 24-year-old migrant worker...jumped out of a window of a dormitory run by his employer, Foxconn, the huge electronics manufacturing company with a million-strong workforce that makes the majority of the world’s Apple iPhones."
–The Washington Post
1.
Pick it up.
Black glass our mirror when it’s
off but it is never
off. Press home button
now. Flex. Press.
My fingerprint my hot oils is that
your finger pressing the button into place now on
assembly line in Shenzhen
before it’s wiped clean
I see you I think I
see you load your
poem onto it, into me, into me now Did you, just like that, standing,
fall asleep Did you fall farther than you meant Did you
mean me to be reading this I want
to touch the sky/feel that blueness so light/
but I can’t do
any of this/so I’m
leaving this
world/I was fine
when I came/ and fine when I
left In this blue touch light
fine rain starts
scrolling down
2.
On the contract, there are four options. Two show you will consent and two show you will
not. Do not tick the options which indicate you are not willing. Tick the two which say you
are. If you tick the boxes which say you are not willing, the form will be cancelled.
3.
What do you see? Under
razor bright lights
blue hats blue jackets
every identification card
taken away long ago you
came 28 hours by bus
Rules are: no long nails
no yawning no sitting
on the floor no talking
or walking quickly no being
late no transients or preteens
no families If you doze off
and fall against the machines and
there is a live wire no one will
save you The workshop
still as a ravine in autumn
when you slump and slide
back off your stool it’s
a hare breaking out of the
underbrush
4.
Workers have up to ten minutes for visits to the toilet Such visits are possible only if a
supervisor is available and willing to stand in for the workers on the shop floor The toilets
are equipped with cameras When a worker’s time is up a loudspeaker calls for him by name
until he returns He returns For now
5.
That night rain’s pouring into
the underpass
fills up to the brim—cup of opaque
liquid crystal display—frame—shield—
If you get lost in the city you will be
replaced I have people lined up to
replace you $1.85 per hour no errors
Now you turn your head to see
the train coming
rain torn by wind, unstoppable rain, fetid rain
It’s scentless They rinse your uniform so many times
it’s scentless
6.
I pick it up. I ask it Who made you I don’t understand
Who was the person
who put this phone together Do you mean call history Was it wiped
at the factory or after How many hands touched it before mine I don’t
know myself but I can find out I breathe in it’s your air
7.
Motherboard left
your village you
miss her free
garden of plums
ravenala a language
of tightening
screws Do you type
your poems into it
lychee verbena bougainvillea
eucalyptus asbestos flower
at least three screens
a minute at least
twelve hours a day
spray the polish
onto the display
then wipe it dry
if you leave a trace
wipe it again
ten more nets go up
8.
The delegation comes to visit the factory the city government seeds the clouds to cause rain
it rains it clears the smog it leaves behind blue skies from the ground silver iodide rockets fly
up into the clouds which condense which fall towards earth: raindrops. The air tastes harder.
The light sleeker. A frozen glass is rinsed in milk.
9.
Eighteen, your name meaning Walk Forward,
triple-bunked twelve to a room fences ten feet
tall on the roofs
bedsheets full of ash
dried gum in your finger joints and burrs
pricking behind your right shoulder
When you place it in its box
do you imagine me.
In the testing area the belt keeps running never stops
halfway through the sixteen-hour shift you recall
a corner of roof where one’s torn be quick—
Eighteen your name meaning Walk Forward
Eighteen meaning unfree meaning
falling from a great height
10.
You are the one
who installs front
camera with proximity
sensor leaning
over the factory
assembly a shadow—
sensor gains awareness
six hands later in process
but you figure out how
to turn it on early What if
there were a faint summons
they could feel Sensor makes
a square around your
face and focuses A pair
of hands gently opening
a red lacquered door
11.
“On his rare days off Xu Lizhi likes to visit bookshops, lingering in the aisles. He frequents
the factory library, and writes poems and reviews. He twice applies unsuccessfully for desk
jobs—as a librarian at the factory and at his favorite Shenzhen bookstore Youyi. When a
local journalist asks him about his future, he says: our lives will become better and better.”
12.
I pick it up with my free hand, screenshot, Xu Lizhi, you’re
standing on an overpass in Shenzhen, green plaid shirt,
your right hand holds your left forefinger,
you look older than
anyone your age—light traffic below and the railing’s covered
in stickers, phone numbers . . .
I hold you in my hand you can’t feel
proof of single status physical exam card wastewater pours into the river, paystubs
scurrying like minnows certificate of conformity can’t be both a boy and
a worker, choose one They've trained me to refuse to skip
work, refuse sick leave, refuse to be late, refuse to leave early—
Shenzhen once a fishing village children laugh dashing past
green lychee trees hulls heaped trash and scrub hills above
where now stands a bronze statue of Deng Xiaoping a corridor
made of nonfiction When it happened no one was there to see it
ten more nets go up
13.
You are the one
who changes air
filters in the manager’s
office the yellow stained black-caked
filter a seine
that catches night in itself
all night
14.
I pick it up, type in your words A screw plunges to the ground
working overtime at night Another worker’s falling asleep on the line
iron moon head jerking It drops straight down with a faint sound that draws
no one’s attention just like before on the same kind
of night a person—
ten more
and grates on every window
15.
The boy breathing
next to you 120mm
tweezers turning thin
fingers the smallest
parts he moves by
hand always wears
gloves to touch it
until one morning he
picks it up and
types into it My eyes are
so tired they won’t open
16.
I look at it. Locked. Is there space for a distress signal if you wanted
to leave one. I switch silencer off, hit home, it gives me
only one emergency call, no private numbers, but it can take
a picture. Will record whatever I do next. I’ve heard there’s a time
difference with foreign countries, here it’s daytime, there it’s night—
Designed by Apple in California Assembled in China Model A1549
FCC ID BCG-E2816A IC 579C-E2816A IMEI 355790070868852
17.
I pick it up
forgive me
I pick it up
I Describe to You the YDE Girl
That rope? It is a breathless yes
fingers press into this windy
oboe our throat—one woolen
waistband slip-knotted on neck
keeps you warm below twelve feet
of peat, lineless, a convalescent’s skin
only mud the boy-doctors dig into
unearthing each indivisible number.
How unlike the bark of this beetled elm,
its jagged beams and flagging crown
fine as the hair of a queen anemic—
hissing to be mistreated—this caused my beauty—