love letters from my 34th summer

If we were meant to
Know each other only in China
And our branches
Never again scrape against the same window,
Or even if they do,
I want you to remember
Us floating with the moon on the South China Sea.

While postcards from yourself
When you were young,
Pencil drawings of necks and ear lobes on napkins,
And other varied
And loose papers
Cram into the heavy gray cabinets of your memory,
Don’t let this scrap of a night flutter away.

Don’t lose the five of us making our way outside,
And squeezing past street vendors
Selling lamb on a stick
And past the row of parked mopeds,
And into the muggy tightness of that taxi
At three in the morning and asking for
The beach outside of town.

Of that tiny red taxi bumping to the sea,
Bursting at it bolts and door hinges
With all our knees, elbows, shoulders and shins.

And how the sea, duly impressed with our
Stripped-down boldness,
Made molds of ten feet in the soft sand
Before we three Americans
And two Chinese
Flung ourselves into its salty yawn.

While the rest of Haikou tossed and turned,
The warm tide embraced us
Before carrying us out to a raft
Anchored at dreaming distance from the shore.

Maybe we all met one week before that
So we could reflect the moon together
That night while lying on that raft.
Our eyes were open like traps,
Our bodies dripped with the moonlit sea,
Our breathes were heavy with wonder,
And the air was filled with the names of
Constellations
Whispered in unison
First in English
Then in Chinese.

Look: A farmer forsaking soil and sun is wrestling in the grass with his dogs. One is yelping; the other, a recent stray, has escaped and looks on at the ready.

Like a seed planted and forgotten and prepared to pierce dark dirt suddenly, maybe even today, a day of grass stains and the hope of Spring.

At morning in the river by the farm, the sun is shattered by a solitary rock. That rock, kissed and blessed by the whitest of light, is the first place I look each morning at the farm by the river while clutching a cup of coffee that was grown in the shade of a mountain by a farm that I will never see. Later the entire river is the perfect reflection of a flame, but the rock is brightest, and am I reminded of the coffee, viscous and alert, still sticking to the bottom of my coffee pot.

His eyebrows may be his most distinctive quality. There is something about them, though most people forget what just before forgetting him. He lives alone in grey house that wants to be white. He had never married, though on winter nights, when the winds curl through the cracks, he is still warmed by the faint trace of a summer… On rare occasions when people mention him, they stare blankly at each other and utter meaningless phrases like,

“He used to do something, I heard. He taught or climbed telephone poles.”

He likes to be alone because it is the only time he doesn’t feel lonely.

His voice is the voice people hear when they dial wrong numbers and mutter apologies. The faint trace of his pinky has made its way into countless photo albums. The faint sound of him whistling was once heard by two strangers sharing a park bench right before they fell in love. He has held thousands of elevator doors for breathless masses. Generations of migrating birds plan their route to take them by his birdfeeder. Last week, in your car, you nodded at him when he let you into traffic, then you turned up the music. As a child, you took short cuts through his yard to the park. The broken chair his neighbor put out on the curb two years ago has been restored and sanded and painted and now proudly supports his weight each day for breakfast. He corners, picks up, and returns dropped change at gas stations at least six times a week. The lettuce in his garden always gets light and water. Last Mother’s Day, while you dined with mom it began to rain. He rolled up your car windows. Only three people on earth have ever really known him. Only one has ever really loved him. They are all gone now, like the snow that was mysteriously shoveled from your driveway when you were four. Soon he will be gone too. And only the chair and the lettuce and the birds will mourn him.