Originally published in Salt Hill Journal
Origami
I would wake earlier than my mother on Sunday mornings,
leaf through the origami book, whose language my mother
did not understand. I concocted lilies from printer paper:
cold, white, larger than a baby’s laugh. The crinkling
would wake her. It was music, she said, and in a way,
she didn’t regret teaching me piano. The wonder
in her eyes as I brought lily after lily to life.
Years later, she had a miscarriage. A broken
parachute descended from her eye when
she got the call. Then she looked at me.
Nocturne
In the dining cabin, tea flushes in the saucer like burnt
twilight, orangeade with night flare. The window, gray and green
with rural China. Bamboo houses with mud in the pores fracture
in rewind, reach towards the skyline to defy the meaning
of weight. I have forgotten the meaning too: if I never
leave this train, I’ll orbit the earth until my body is a sliver
of dark. The river discovers itself again in the armpits
of the hill. On the outskirts of Beijing, a boy asks if I’ve been
to a Chinese bar. I want to hold his shoulders and weep.
It is too easy to stumble upon daylight so we tiptoe
until we are gone. We do not get enough hours after dark.