Delicious Vowels
This is how you sound.
Like strips of
indecipherable syllables
floating inside a
lullaby.
This is how you taste.
Like the first breath of air
a drowning man sips
when he is finally free
of the echo of the sea.
This is how you move.
Like spoken-word poems
that carry the finality
of the written word in
their voices.
*
Break, break, break.
It wasn’t meant to be.
You drink water from the earth,
I drink the water of the sky.
You speak of wars and engines and empires,
I speak of seas and stars and magnolias.
You were born at sunrise and made half-moons disappear,
The night is my currency.
You were raised in the company of freizes that drew beautiful patterns
on your face with the dye of fireflies,
I carved the moon on the walls of my house,
to placate the fears of scaredy cats.
Your ancestors worshipped porcelain goddesses,
Mine snipped at rhododendrons and wore them as prized heirlooms.
Fragrant pears and softened almonds cured your hunger,
The sprint of wolves quenched my thirst.
You create poems. You feed blushes.
I beat them with my hands until their rhymes fall out.
Don’t hold your breath, knock yourself out.
*
Dear Magnolia
A man beats his wife
Because he cannot beat his son,
His son beats his wife,
Because he cannot beat his father,
Men revere each other
By withdrawing into their women,
And somewhere in city,
Regret is peddled under neon lights,
Where a torrent of giggles
Finds the language it must speak.
***