Thunder across clear skies

seawater sloshes across

the deck’s shallow dish; the mast

splintering by unseen force —
“Never flip the fish,” Por Por says

turn one over and the boats follow.
We grew up worlds away from

fish guts and sweat, yet the body

still remembers the impotence of hope:

ears searching for a docking ship’s horn;

a Casio alarm clock nestled within

the sofa’s dips, facing the door;

hands calcified to the oblong of a phone,

old vigils for the new world.
“Jiak png*!” she calls from the kitchen,

summoning a chorus of shuffling feet

and scraping chair legs. At eighty,

her chopsticks are still skilled,

digging into soft steamed flesh —

a careful peeling away of the spine,

love, as a single bone resting

on the marbled tabletop.



* Teochew for “Let’s eat.”