Bello Cafe, Glen Park, April 11, 2019

I.

Dear Heart, I dwell in the tincture of day.
You emerge from baysalt, cloud-silt, pucker
on the underskin of my tongue. I look for You
in the bay’s hoarse wheezing. The turquoise awning
that dances when the fog is hungry and bare.
Scarlet knots drip from the newly leafed trees.
I remember their dance from when I was seventeen.
How the hills zipped, fluorescent,
past the windows of the crowded train.

II.

In the coffee shop, unctuous with light, I wait
for the syrup to settle in my gut. Peach gleam
and bitter bark, balm in the steel bean canisters,
the register’s chime, loosening water, warm Cantonese
of the couple behind the counter, home lunch of cantaloupe
the husband eats—slowly, with a fork—then gathers
the thick rinds carefully into a Tupperware nest.

III.

I am lonely for the things my father carried:
fat composition books, zipped canvas folio,
single, large orange distorting the scarred,
black side of his bag. Rubble of waxy ginger
and sticky black plums. A pair of clean socks.
Clean broth of sky, a song for clean bones.
Brine-watered morning. We drank and were full.

IV.

Keep me in the circle of this sound:
the muffle of my parents’ voices on the stairs,
language whose words I picked over like crumbs.
How I lean into its leavings, the couple’s chatter
as they wipe down the register, polish
its chirp to a shine. Hou-aa. Yut go nai cha.
Warm steam frills at the edge.

V.

Light me through to tomorrow,
the crinkle of my father’s voice,
his hands kneading chen pei mui
on the train. Sixteen Aprils ago, the rain
fell light on the tracks, and we stopped
for food in the middle of the afternoon.
He took the map and traced a finger
down the railway’s twisting spine, inverted
the top of the teapot, signaled for home.