Souvenir

This pocket mirror 

from across the Pacific

closes like a clam

to hide its pearly finger-prints

(memories)

it fears it will forget

the green rice fields,

rice cakes, burnt rice-water,

jumbled, jingling, jabbering

street markets 

smiling faces

song birds

it is caged now,

a captive in a foreign land

so it closes 

and when I pry it open,

reflects 

only my own face back;

it does not sing anymore.