14
When you took me to Chinatown we crossed
a small footbridge spanning a labyrinth
of sewers. In the dim recesses of shops,
cloudy fortunes pickled in jars.
14
When you took me to Chinatown we crossed
a small footbridge spanning a labyrinth
of sewers. In the dim recesses of shops,
cloudy fortunes pickled in jars.
13
Do not so easily admire
your tears. Turn them
into food or ink, never into idols.
Let them go, the first chance you get.
12
When the edifice is gone, what happens
to memories of selves that lived there?
The one that stood, furiously scribbling
secrets on the wood of the sill?
11
Let me have a room
with a view of something growing;
a woven blanket smelling faintly
of tobacco leaves baked in the sun.
10
It is late in the night. Or too early
in the morning. Someone is making bread.
Or someone is walking into the darkness
with a coin clutched tightly in hand.
9
I thought I knew
this city: from my gate,
the visible boundary spanning
all sides. Wings flashing in the air.
8
Take for instance the word Rupture.
Skeleton key inserted into the lock,
that moment after you’ve signed
your name on the blank.
7
I did not pray to darkness, I did not
fabricate this fate. Among competing
claims the compass points bent
always to something different.
6
Wandering seabirds
ride the lower trellis of clouds.
Any halfway point is the hardest—
Not yet there, not able to rest.
5
A winding road
tracks the mountainside:
think of a multitude of hands
tunneling into a hard loaf of bread.