Tarrying Home - Unfolding

Published in the printed poetry anthology ‘Where Else: An International Hong Kong Poetry Anthology (2023 Verve Press) .

Please read more about this anthology in this article by Vaughan Rapatahana, published on Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, where my poem is also mentioned.

Tarrying  Home - Unfolding

At first it seemed that

                                        Nothing could ever compare to you

­(what made’ you’, was yours only)

                                        or to what you were giving in return.

Not even your typhoons

                                        - Fury, wreckage of brambles and branches-

were like the cyclones

                                        sweeping away roofs, cars, homes

in the Northern hemisphere.

                                         It felt familiar,

Always familiar, was

                                         the chattering of parrokets

the call of the koels

                                         covering the irritating rattling of MTR trains

and the horning of taxi drivers unable to unwind.

                                          The trolleys with cardboard boxes pushed by old ladies

The cage homes, the sub-divided flats

                                           everyone wrote about in their Hong Kong poems

were trademarks of your never-changing evolutions.

                                            I liked to fall asleep listening to your loud lullaby

I liked to stay with you despite the hype, the high price;

                                            I thought it was almost forever-love

despite the smog, the smoke, the snakes, the blaze.

                                            Then, when the trees,

When even the banyans changed shape and turned into bamboos,

                                             when they started bending at the slightest whisper of wind,

that love burned to ashes,

                                              like the joss-paper everyone wrote about

in their Hong Kong poems.

                                              You entered another door,

This time…

                                               Me, following you,

hopeful at first—

                                               circling around like a koi prisoner in the pond,

heart in my hands

                                               looking for the exit in the dark hall

ready to leave you forever.