Feather of your presence

Feather of your presence floating
toward dusk. Too far for me to reach
yet your greeting comes in a text
message I would've missed if not for the
false companionship of strangers, so drawn
to cellphones like fireflies to light.

Bowed, somber heads forever missing
a rainbow's colored magic, connected to
consciousness beyond the loops of logic

Slowly, I reach out to you back in slow
reply, one eye on a stray cloud following
my bus, the other covertly trailing the arc
of a game on a girl's cellphone.

Quietly, the stray cloud settles.
My pilgrimage of you still treading
paths of amber shrouds home.

The Shop and the Children

The children play, brick by brick by brick
scattered over the floor, a mess for
mothers’ admonishment. Theirs hangs around,
vulture of supervision; she flashes me
a grin that devours my guts by

the cashier counter. Patiently, patiently, like
a weasel of its store of game for sale, I
wait – the children continue playing, their
mother hawks commands to “hurry up and go”
(some elder vultures are waiting).

Chuckling to self, refraining a bile
of impatience from welling up, I bid the boys
leave the toys on the floor – my next chore.

Strange how vultures know compassion too!
Her mouth, now crinkling like granny’s,
raptures me ten seconds deciphering
dimples for answers.

The boys are gone. Dread drops its
talon-weight; the shop seems suddenly
too endless for its shelves, awaiting
the next batch of boys to come and
scatter its toys over the barren floor.

The Taste of Bygones

I ordered her favorite plate
of sorrows, poured in
with steamboat soup.

The restaurant holds its proud past
in mahogany furniture, their armrests
rawer now, like rough wood
or the once sandy brush
of her arm resting on mine
like her head of fluff and inertia.

This air-conditioned wall, still
a pillow for work-worn heads
grateful to lay down their worlds.

The sparse patron scrapes
their plate clean of leftovers.

My soupspoon scratches
a tune and the soup thins out
its bittered broth. I am left

with a bile of phlegm on a napkin,
served by a soured owner
willing the years behind.

The River at Sundown

The river bears its share of monsters.
Deep splashes from depths
as you toss your own ghosts into it.
The stones sink without a ripple.

Over quaint shophouses the sun
plunges its flame, flares out the souls
of neon and sunder. I'm reminded the crowd
floats, fades in mid-walk, reappears
like dead kin. I befriend for the moment

the wind, flicking her hair like a temptress.
She pulls me by the fingertips somewhere,
a bank where no more lovers frolic and the
moon throws her pale face on the water.