A False Love

YUCHENG TAO

like ants
low in the dust
endure
the bite
of a flat-bellied spider
slow escape
again & again
like a rash
filthy
furred limbs
pressed
against the web
descend—
kiss
or hunt
those
equally small things
in the dust
they come
then leave
leave
then come
they love
false naming
they baptize
a city
to rid themselves of
ash
& fear
broken roads
incomplete neon
people
who fall
into sleep
the season of the sun,
scorched
by the sun
return
to imagined shelters
from the built desert
my eyes—
where I stand
face forward
I do not name
what is before me
because
every thing
like every death
is born
from its own
abundance
where mud
mixes with dirt
the wind
gently
embraces

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YUCHENG TAO is a Chinese poet and the editor of The Argyle Literary Magazine. He serves as a reader for Palette. 
His work has appeared in Strange Horizons, White Wall Review, Wild Court, Ink Sweat & Tears, NonBinary Review, and is forthcoming in Black Fox, Star*Line, I-70 Review, New Plains,and North Dakota Quarterly. He has twice received an honorary award from the Dark Poet Club Contest.