Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Sarah Lao

Sarcophagus

Because the body, for its safe passage, 
must be preserved. Because there is a spell 

written to fulfill every longing: thirst & hunger
& the infatuation with one’s embryonic name. 

In another century, grave goods ornament the dead 
in elegance. An ivory comb to align all thread, 

a green amulet to sustain the heart. Under the light 
of a display case, the ceremonial blade curves 

into flint & hieroglyph. I imagine myself opening 
canopic jars & mouths, the slow reanimation 

of our limbs. As the docent lectures, I pass aisles 
of sarcophagi & turn inconsolable. 

I learn sarcophagus originates from the Greek 
for “flesh-eating stone” & I am jealous 

of these painted bodies built to house decay. 
This isn’t a metaphor. When I say I seek 

beauty through symmetry, I don’t mean 
I believe in the repetition of shells. 

Or, don’t hold me when I’m lonely. 
I only want to cannibalize 

my own selfish appetite.

Dream Sequence 

I refuse the color blue when it comes
in voltas. All winter, I dance en pointe

in a skirtless leotard while my mother tuts 
sequences at the barre. What beauty confounds 

the logic of perspective? The imprints of a snow hare
braiding through a white field. Or, why I perform 

in the theatre: for its ribbed balconies, 
heavy velvet curtains. My mother believes 

our history is idiomatic, encoded into the string 
of pearls we hide in a choked drawer. 

The spectacle we make of memory—brilliant, 
accumulating, skeletal. A silver bowl 

replete with peaches, skin darkened 
to a ruddy stain. I feed my mother slivers 

of pulp & pretend the white tights on my legs 
belong to a rococo daughter. Meanwhile, 

the intimacy of glass figurines & doors 
left ajar. Meanwhile, the snow falling 

where it must: in our hands, frigid & ruinous, 
the remnants of all we have yet to inherit.

Style

I am in need of privacy and a new wardrobe. 
Indulge me. There is nothing that style cannot fix. 

Outside, a colony of bees stir with a missing monarch. 
Does that make them more or less of a swarm.

Picnic blankets spread thin over a patchwork lawn 
and summer in America begins and ends 

with a fork in the road. Is it grace that makes me love
or reciprocate love. Once, I went to the evening opera 

and heard the soprano tune her tongue to the pitch 
of an empty wine glass. Once, I fell asleep 

before the television and woke up in a commercial 
for tuxedos. So maybe I loved a boy that smelled

like fennel and ketamine. Maybe I booked a hotel
with a two-star rating just to trash my half-knitted scarf.

There has to be a way for a needle to enter 
without inventing more holes. I should’ve learned

how to crochet instead. I only ever needed 
that one live stitch. 

***

Author photo by Kelly Ding