Layers
I thought about incense burned
under banana trees, the way
you may have worn your shirttail
out, a childhood rebellion carried
into adulthood, the special way
you would have held my hand after
the jade Buddha's head that meant
so much to me fell and broke among
wilting lotuses.
From far away I’ve constructed
thoughts of a younger us in an exotic
location, drinking aphrodisiac wine,
our souls quivering naked under
embodied passions, our faces revealing
the concealed charms of moonlight on
leaves as my lips flutter about tracing
every square inch of your body, you,
my recent meal.
I’ve built paper lanterns before just to
watch them unfold, knowing that the
time spent was pleasant enough,
sufficient enough, for someone like me,
unworthy of true love, broken. But this
time the fragments of paper aren’t flying
in the wind, instead they are conspiratorially
whispering in my ear the promises of
better days.
You have corrupted me with sweet illusions.
The change of sensibility in me corresponds
with the credulity of your word; you the
balance, the happy light I trust vehemently
to guide me in the darkness. Behind us tiny
figures of nymphs dance forming a silken
sleeve of delicate constitution. The most they
can do is look as our postures show them
what love has taught them to expect from life.
In the mountains of our Pennsylvania home,
luminaries catch the sparkle of stars, clothed
in comforting colors that reflect with precision
over a solitary lake. However obscure the moment,
destiny enraptures with poetic rurality what was
meant to be in a breathless mirror where the sum
of all our illusions can be found in a parked truck
under the harmonious intricacy of boughs, where
the journey has come to a glorious end.
And that jade Buddha's head, its now firmly glued
no worse for the wear from the delicate and crucial
conflict of its past years.
Time of Reflections I
Art Print
Ying-wu, Wei
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