Still Life with a Puppet
By Xinyan Chen
they said he wasn’t alive because he had no heartbeat
and this hurt him deeply. he feels more alive than most others,
feels as if he has a bigger heart than they:
his face papered from corn husks, hands
whittled from walnuts. every part of him
used to be alive. doesn’t that count for something?
he is nature. borne of, returning to. but they say
everything that makes him is now dead. la nature morte.
must be the reason why he’s so sti
and stale, can’t
move until someone pities him, plays with him,
breathes air into his lungs, toggles his eyes open.
what an indignity, to be someone’s plaything;
he thinks, if nature ever revolted, he’d be on their side,
composting his creator’s wooden pencils, the sheafs
of papers decimated by moths and silkworms. wouldn’t that be nice
to be an agent, a part of something,
leave his own legacy on the world.
well, in the meantime, he supposes all he can do is wait.
wait for the revolution. be the sleeper agent.
lies all crooked against a tin can,
feet twisted into themselves. he can’t
gure out his own lines.
closes his eyes, pretends not to see:
and really that makes him more human than ever.
