“Was it for this the clay grewtall”—Wilfred Owen

i

cicadas hum an orchard liturgy
into the wind of small sparkles of branches
shells on the trees strengthen your brother-in-law’s ghost
his heart hangs unglued as the soles of slippers blister in the macadam
with the lies and false offerings you char the revisions and revisions
we used to poem cards for the month of ancestors gone up in ash and smoke kindled Christmas Yulelogs for them in summer, our imagination
leapt off the bridge two days before the incensed was unwrapped ungainly
a body leaned far along the pebble driver banks before the arms
all swung-up in a tangled netting with the crayfish pinching his lips
became a rhyme for story telling fisherman in the low country
where death names the food in ceremony and bodies pass on
rivers of Tamsui and Xiuguluan carry more than a man’s body and clothes
beneath the promise of love in hum and heft of crawfish
the butter grits the hound lap up before the temple your heart drug up
from the mud trawling through the gorge
where we charred the moon in sacrifice and eat pineapple and bone
the children strike match to sandalwood, frankincense, myrrh,
with long strokes of cinnamon and lavender before the ghosts
set in as the clay grew tall

ii

fallen angels spread wide as the black sea in the stories for children
but we were taught others tales and genuflection that bare themselves below the city’s night lights where an upturning bat cattles left
from an opening in a tree the green sough of grief through the Banyans
and the dreams mark the smallness of the players who lose their lives
in the wing clapping hopes undressed by Majong, Roulette, Mark Six Lottery tables
horses racing the wrenches that clack in suit pockets of the charmed and wealthy
whose hearts go vacant from overuse in the garden of gamblers
businessmen, streetwalkers and tourists steal kisses from the girls
in front of Longshan Temple as cups of tin fill with promises
and coins with prayers of supplication with nothing in the dawn
as grandmothers and aunties waveg host-money and broken teeth
before the infirmed who suffer impairments and the tourists’ indifferent
before the hills’ darkness winks at the fishing boats that gambol
toward the tables of the sea pulling up nets of marine life and threadbare stories
we were there once as were our ancestors who colonized the land
before the ghosts were tucked into their beds at sea

iii

dear Ah Ma, protect me from blindness and the ill-toothed heart
as I kiss girls with plates of tin, promises carved from cypress
and loyalty placed on the shoulders of candle vapor
nothing else sits upon the stems of the fallen flowers in the year

I scribble your heart in the dawn before I unlock the dark canopy for you

Ah Ma, did you too wish to be reborn once, long ago?

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*Ghost Month is Chinese festival celebrated on the 15 day of the seventh lunar month. Tradition holds that during this period, spirits 
‍held captive in the underworld because they are not worshipped or cannot find peace due to violent death or misdeeds are released to earth . These "orphaned spirits and wild ghosts" (according to the chengyu ,孤魂野鬼, gū hún yě guǐ ) are offered comforting meals and ceremonies for their liberation.^Wikipedia

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