Elegy for Bruce Lee

Somewhere in the dark sky is a beautiful fight,

one-two, cha cha chá—all our knuckles rapping

against the stars’ edges for the dancing master,

for a flying sidekick to our bodies’ centers.

My father called you Little Dragon Lee, told me

how you swiveled your hips across the floor—

three-four, cha cha chá—then you both wrote

love poems for a girl in your English class.

I practiced throwing roundhouse kicks as a boy,

feet aimed at my reflection in store windows,

at street signs, at parked cars, everything I knew

I could break. Now, my feet cannot leave

the ground, and I write love poems for the dead.

The last time I watched Enter the Dragon,

I imagined it was my father emerging victorious

from the hall of mirrors, my father hustling

on the dance floor, because the last time

I saw my father, he had been waiting for me

the whole day in the morgue. Hold me,

he said, and I did until his body stopped

acting like it was alive. There is no fight

where there is no spark, no wretched cock crow

in the dark, just this cha cha chá—grief is a fist

and a promise to hurt someone. Just give it

an inch between knuckle and breastbone.

It will punch through everyone.