Haze

By Cindy Zhao

The day ends. This I can say;
I’ve helped it fracture
into the mouth of the water. News anchors
and a screen’s sallow flare; I chased it
the way a bullet chases the exit wound
& everything is thrown wide open. 

O, how
the pathogen becomes us,
how the sea spits onto the emptying
sand, the season, 
our lungs. How each morning
admits us so softly subconscious
all of it hardly
anything more.