Timothy Liu

Golden Plates Ode

Were they fake news? Etched
on tin? Did the boy prophet
really find them sequestered

The Lord’s Table

The banquet table was spread, 
But I could no longer smell 
Satisfaction in the room. 

Two Fishermen in Hong Kong

We couldn’t find anyone 
in that inner-city maze. 
Between thick buildings 

A Vision of Judas

The light was too harsh 
in the South. All day 
I sat beneath that tree 
growing darker and darker 
until I was all shade. 

A Killing Frost

When the cold front came, all the leaves went limp.
That was that—no more white flies on the patio,
one bloom still curled tightly in its calyx, 
its promise of color fading. Yet there’s nothing

They Eat Dogs in China

            Or so my father said— 
the clock on the mantle silenced, 
            that family Bible 
                        in his hands a weight in the pans 

Martyrs

A brigade of ants marching over torsos 
cast in bronze. The mouths that cannot speak 

From the Land of Nod

I will go on 
loving you, even after 
you have stopped loving 
anyone. What if 

Turncoat

On line at Rite-Aid where a woman cuts in front of me, says: He
was saving my place. There’s no saving places, I say. She says to
him, Did I not ask you to save my place? He says nothing. She
prods. She goads. He relents: There’s no saving places. Then I’ll

Romance

Belly flop off a high board the closest I ever got.

Nothing like that couple we saw. 

Hand-in-hand freefalling off the Towers.

An Apocalypse

Chucked my cell phone 
into the ocean in a move to be more 

alone. Was the Palm Pilot

Legacy

A horse-drawn carriage
passes by in another

age—leaves of ash