Acapella

 

There are so many things

that remind me of how you

laughed – all of which I

thought I had either burnt

cinder crisp or scrubbed well enough

to have washed away. Among the

things I thought to have now

turned ash-white: the songsongsong

in the car, in the bar drunk as drunk

as drunk as, songs from me to you

and you to me on bar-stamped napkins

where we sangsangsang giddy, wicked,

gay songsongsongs. Among the

things I have thought to have rinsed

by now all the rote textures in brine: sand,

sandsandsand – everywhere – where skin

met sea and sea and sea: the womb of

my socks, the fold of matchbook from

the hotel whose key was lost twice, thrice,

twice, twice, then my secret pocket, zippered

in handbag, you stuck your fingers in

when you faked fishing for the keys, and

you laughedlaughedloudloudlaughedoutloud,

grating teeth punctuating the breath that

couldn’t have ever caught up with us.

 

 

A Chinese Lady

 

Central Kingdom Ltd, in trademark red and gold, has told me

to ‘take a piece of Orient home’. Their monopoly’s in vintage

postcards, at 50 yuan apiece for former muses of Madam Li Chin’s.

A set gets you an assortment. Twelve Chinese ladies, in various stages

of blush and undress, hawking Delight of Shanghai cigarettes with charm. 

 

One, in particular, held her tobacco stick like incense, slanted

for smoke to fly straight-up. You held yours at the temple like that –

fingers on tiptoe, with three bows for your Mother, after I had been named

a flower. In the mother tongue, flower and squander share the same

thick strokes. You cried for the heavens to hear you, once the ashes fell. 

I buy the card, without enough stamps to reach anywhere in the world.