MUZZLE MAGAZINE
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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.
ISSN 2157-8079
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