“The sound of rain
outlives us.”
—Li-Young Lee
What outlives even the rain: the sound
of my father’s ink settling like a final breath
onto the translucent skin of rice paper.
Dark dew grazes the pink, creased ear
of an apple blossom. Of blossoms
or their proneness to bruise, I know
next to nothing. All I know is that
a whole forest tipped with frost
trembles inside me as I apprentice myself
to the strength in my father’s hand—
my small fist cradled in his
like a dirge caught in a swan’s throat
& how the world unfurls in tendrils of fine
black silk between the flicks of our wrists, freed
from the tip of the horsehair brush:
天涯 the sky’s cliff edge & 海角 the sea’s
folded corner as if each stroke obliterates
a coast between us, distills a year still
to come. After the lesson, I lay the brush
gently against the gnarled forehead
of the inkstone & turn to face my father
expecting, in innocence, the gift of a cool kiss
but he no longer recognizes me.
He doesn’t remember that,
in a past life, this ink we rinse
off the brush so freely now
was the blood that bound us together.