go on then

what are the soles of my boots made out of?
a kind of old rope, used on old ships

what is bone china & where does it come from?
orchids & baseballs, fused by the railroad

what is the sky if not the oldest blue place?
a void of tigers & a vast burden of fall

who is the hero of the diamond jukebox?
the rabbit eluding the bats of bamboo

name the cause of the cannibal slowdown.
a wobble of bulldozers made out of light

what will you be at the end of the earthquake?
rope, orchid, tiger, rabbit, light

____

Jason Emde is a teacher, writer, amateur boxer, and graduate student in the MFA program at UBC. The author of My Hand’s Tired & My Heart Aches (Kalamalka Press, 2005), his work has appeared in The Malahat Review, Prometheus Dreaming, PopMatters, and numerous other publications. He lives in Japan.