Tag: Sharon Tung

the last shape of us by Sharon Tung

~ ONE ART ~ 2 Comments

the last shape of us

late summer—

a wasp settles
on the bright green body
of a caterpillar.

her body curves,
threading eggs into flesh.

inside, the larvae feed—
the caterpillar’s heart still beating,
its body thinning, swelling
with what empties it.

days later,
white bodies break through.

and yet, the hollowed caterpillar
lingers,
spinning silk over their cocoons,
guarding what has emptied it.

i carry that image
as i climb the hill behind our old house,
palms open, holding my dog’s ashes
like living weight.

at the lake
i pause—

last winter,
we crossed the frozen surface,
her paws igniting the snow
like sparks,

vanishing
between trees,

the snow
suddenly empty.

then—

bursting back,
tongue flying sideways,
wild with the chase.

i open my hands.
the wind takes her in handfuls.

memory’s green flesh
in grief’s white belly,
woven together
in silk.

in the grass
my bent body lingers,
guarding what has emptied me.

this last shape of us
outlasts my hands.

*

Sharon Tung is originally from South Africa and now lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband and two children. Her poetry has appeared in Literary Mama.

Between 0 and 1 by Sharon Tung

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Between 0 and 1

For Savannah Guthrie

Somewhere, a field holds the hollow shape of a grave
with no body.

I dug it in my mind the day masked men tore
my brother-in-law from his storefront and dragged him into a waiting car—
the sky unwoken, streets folding tight around him.

Then the silence—thick as swamp mud, closing over my breath.

Why does the mind refuse an empty room?
It furnishes the dark: a mattress thin as paper,
a rope knotted to a chair, bruises blooming
across his thinning body, a single bulb swinging its tired moon.

In the shadows, Schrödinger’s cat curls beside him, both alive and dead.

My phone remains on full volume; each ring clicks against my skull,
a cylinder spinning—one bullet in its chamber, one fragile chance whirling in the dark.

Hope whittles down
to one percent—
the rest swallowed by shadows.

But between 0 and 1 lies infinity—
0.1,
0.01,
0.001…
each decimal holds endless probabilities
between two realities.

So I wait in the space between 0 and 1,
until the field yields:
        a grave returned to earth,
        or a body to fill it.

*

Sharon Tung is originally from South Africa and now lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband and two children. Her poetry has appeared in Literary Mama.