6. Ang Shuang & Emily Hedvig Olsson

The mountains
fell asleep years ago
so stubbles of green
sprouted on their bellies
to knit a blanket of seedlings 
that stretched and prodded their fingers
at the sun’s zapping gleam
Ungoverned
the seedlings stumbled after the sky
whose shifting clouds drifted
beyond the sea 
Bursting 
the seedlings flowered the land
crowding each other 
piling higher and farther 
to be the first to know
where the clouds go
until they tasted the stinging flesh
of the sea so unlike that of 
the water giver
that they could only dip their toes in 
and retreat 
to the confines of a land
which raised them for its own warmth
And time went by 
as the seedlings festered with curled roots 
never edging past the shoreline 
to spend their days staring 
at their friends uprooted for stones 
stripped by machines
and at the clouds 
drifting beyond their reach

I have never been to a bus stop
in what looks like the middle of nowhere
but I have to say completely without exaggeration
that the picture you sent has fundamentally
altered something inside me. I must confess
I am a city girl with an addiction to cell reception
and an aversion to off-map locations
but I just bought some hiking boots
with nowhere to wear them to. Today
I got on a bike and rode down a path
so bumpy it made my insides quiver
and at the quarry at the end of it
I folded my arms and thought,
What about some mountains?
I mean, what about a hill with its skirt
sewn together by trees? What about a sky
unpricked by chrome, a lake without a name?
And in the middle of it all, what about
a bus stop along a pavement pried apart
by weeds, and two people waiting
for something only rumored to appear?

After two weeks I get sea-sick
my stomach lurching whenever
I look at the thin strip of blue outside

From this distance it looks unmoving
& sitting on this jutted lip suspended
seventeen stories above the air 

I get the sudden urge to take a knife
to this view  to pass it through everything
before me    to see if it shreds

Everything below & around me is slowing
this country folding into itself like a lantern
beneath a sudden downpour

Sitting here it seems impossible
for this world to be  all at once       
so burdened & so beautiful     

A passing cloud disturbs      tosses
a stone into still life  What is there to do
but lay down    my imaginary blade  & wait

I would like to fill that chair
the one with a crocheted body
parked too close to a table that is
not unlike ripples waved on a quarry
only there’s a doughnut’s hole in it 
so it makes me rather hungry
and intrigued whether the seat was 
left unfilled as if the owner left in a hurry 
in search for a meal or something 
for the gaping hole in the middle 
But nonetheless I’m more inclined
to hop over the glass railing
beside the table and explore the houses 
buildings streets and trees below
just for a lick of the ocean water
with ships with nowhere to go
But a click of the key and dusk
comes as quick as day and 
I’m left with the image of a city
frozen by a light that slipped away