life.

never moving backward;

you run away from me with
this reckless smile
that sometimes I think is
the saddest beautiful smile because
there's something so fleeting
in watching it so spontaneously
and genuinely react and change
tongue pressed against teeth
the hissing sound of joy
of giggled air explosion
into uncontrolled laughter
and squeals

no moment frozen in memory
just continual movement forward
time's effort to leave me behind and
you won't even realize it
until you're old like me and you
see how like a mushroom I can
only be the stem and you looking
out from the bulb won't see
I've atrophied and pushed you
into the future where beneath
the shadows I watched you
grow and

                 even now the years have
begun piling up and soon you will
not remember what it was like to be
held and I'll always have that memory
like a phantom pain watching you walk
so lovely on your own but recalling
how it was in those beautiful days when
you needed me and raised your arms
to call for my embrace and breathed
the slightest sign of relief when your
head rested on my shoulder
and I could whisper in your ear
that daddy loves you

Lunar new year

they were going to face the great goddess
to the sound of snapping mahjong chips

three generations sleep in line in
adjacent room

it was the new year

fireworks cracked 9 floors below
becoming old words spoken in the future

ancient thrusters roared to subtitled
narration

neil armstrong placed one foot gently
on the surface of the moon

lovers

across the bay
dressed in fluorescent light
a betelnut girl waits in the late
afternoon sun to plant red lips
on a fisherman collecting
seaweed in the hazy morning
of the opposite shore

artifact

one wheel leans off curb
parked at angle

beside rice paddy field

footsteps depress through mud

in the distance foggy clouds slip off tree-
topped mountains to outline

a mosquito banging its head against
window

the road ahead is closed to flood