Poetry / March 2012 (Issue 16)


Chinese Box

by Kathlene Postma

I have folded and refolded until the seams are intimate
with me. I cannot make a frog that leaps or a crane
 
that flies when I pull its tail. For now I lay aside
the labyrinth, maze and code.  I know so few
 
of the words you build like small cities across the page,
straight streets waiting for me to follow them to their very end
 
where you, my tutor, applaud my arrival.
 
It is night here, the ocean between us. You are ahead
of me always, morning tea in hand, sure I will send
 
you a sentence before sleep because this is my way,
a flourish of loose lines you will forgive even as you open them,
 
the letters a child could write, one vowel set after the other,
beads upon a string I drape across your screen.
 
You reading me reading you.
 
 
Website © Cha: An Asian Literary Journal 2007-2018
ISSN 1999-5032
All poems, stories and other contributions copyright to their respective authors unless otherwise noted.