Application
by Mingpei Li

i was afraid it had come, old age, the morning
i woke up and couldn't remember
your name. like the taste of my grandmother's
plain pies, rich with rendered fat, when i had it i only 

knew how to swallow it, i never chewed and was 
never full. i had to teach myself to hold it 
in my mouth as if it were salt water, let it rinse out 
the rancid breath of some dispatched habit 

blindly making a return for the living. it wasn't what 
they said in latin mass that i loved, but 
the syntax of guilt made it a lingua franca, 
and when it didn't take i sat in churches 

i had no business in, took communion to taste 
something again, dressed myself down
into the embarrassment of the imperative mood.
the silent you have always been 

a you greater than this you, the you of our near youth, 
near innocence, nights spent fox spotting 
on a field emptying itself of wild secrets and 
misremembered physics, i could not find it later 

on a map, fighting with your roommate to give me
a ride home, a hug goodbye that must stretch itself
to last years. still today i am holding you. you know
what i am going to say so don't make me say it.

---

Mingpei Li was born in China and lives in New York City. Her poems have been published in Black Warrior Review, Cherry Tree, The Massachusetts Review, and Waxwing; and her fiction recently appeared in Hobart and HAD. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and for Best New Poets. Find her on Twitter @biaryl.