Approaching Empty

About married lovers seperated by six thousand miles of ocean.

Approaching Empty

 

Jetlag sets your mind to zero.

You wake in the dark;
Reach to touch her leg
To discover
You are in a
House of lonely rooms.

 

I think of places we shared:
The Summer Palace;
That hill next to the Forbidden City
Where the last Ming emperor hung himself;
The Great Wall;
Thousands of warriors made of clay near Xian;
Misty Hangchow
With its lake filled with lotus
Surrounded by weeping trees.
The streets of Shanghai
Crowded with a billion people.

 

We held hands;
Risked our lives crossing streets
Belonging to taxis
That charge by the Yuan.

 

Now, the only sounds I wake to
Are jets flying to LAX
Thirty miles away
Reminding me no one is
In this misty-eyed Los Angeles house
To sing and dance in the mornings.

 

A neighbor says
Someone is breaking into houses.
I think of my father’s gun
With bullets that explode on impact.

 

After reading
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight,
The second hand on the clock
Crawls through a desolate wasteland.

 

I don’t fit in this house
When my one-of-a-kind Empress isn’t home.

 

In China soft rain falls on her hair.
Dew Clings.
The garden needs water.

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

What do you feel? Opinions are also welcome.

Reviews

[holly]

I feel a sense of the poet's incompleteness. There is a hollowness behind the memories that is only assuaged when the other half of the poet is in residence. This, like so much of your work, is beautiful and has the touch of oriental reserve without being cold. Well crafted!