WENYU ZHANG
WELL
Well, When I said there is a cup of water there, I mean there, on the edge of the stoop steps, where the zigzag backbone of cement planks lets fall the foot's oblivious thunder into effortless grace. The landing of it. As logic does to words. As the saying of it, there, I'll say it: water in a cup soft and clear, it's the momentum tumbling over your lips. The offering of it. But it's cut, the rock of the stoop, chiseled and wedged until only right angles were left, and the warning of it, so jagged, the saying of it, there: your foot not to trip the glass, which falls as pebbles do, grasping the cliff face for an exposed root or even dust. How to stumble the spirits of rain? The condensation and evaporation of words? Water, it doesn't land as a foot does. And one foot cannot substitute the other. Let the thunder clouds strike where they may but I need to say, this, maybe all this, is neither here nor there. That sharp crease of cement. That zigzag. That I need to say there is a cup of water there. At the edge where it never lands, I mean it's flooding the lips. The offering of it.
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