“Why are you so afraid of losing?” he asked, “Everybody loses something or someone at some point in their lives.” He walked away from her, and his lips moved into a position that she would never expect to see. She started thinking about those two parrots she had when she was young. Chirping around, those two greenish birds brushed her with kisses and the yellow feathers on their heads. Claws overlapped each other and clanged on the cage. She fed them with water, held her crayons but she felt like a little thief. He mumbled, “You cannot capture them.” “You cannot hold onto them.” “You cannot cage them.” But she was too late to let go of them. She could barely remember the whole robbery that afternoon: the glass was shattered in the garden, the cage was crippled and knocked over, the yellow feathers were scratched off, the screechy laugh of the cat was heard and the broken claws were lying in her palm. October 2016
Less

It was only five. The steam that rose from the rice-cooker fogged the dusk. There she shuffled along the kitchen shifting and shoving the Choi-sum from the sieve, until they were carefully washed. The tap is the mirror where her veins curved the paths on her hand, a wounded bird could flutter no more, but tears, as summer rain in Southern China, wetted her bandage - the ring Twenty four was she when he clutched her hands, as I now hold onto her hands, which gently brushed my weariness away and taught me how to write poetry. February 2016
Less