Posthumous

Gone as the past is not we meet in dreams.
Your face, the same. My eyes, so changed.
Your laughter, a bit of confetti. Do I make you?
But I sleep. How undream-like you’ve become:
your sleek forehead and cheeks, the same
well-oiled, hua cha smell. The blossoms still
stick to your lips, to the teaspoon of honey.
I sleep and you appear. It is why I close my eyes
every night the dayblinds’ prize of consolation. Do I
make you? Make these cumulous clouds, this Nile
blue sea, this steamer, this station, these
streamer-filled, brass band streets?
We are an end, a send-off, an action.
The seed of a tree in the bones
of your hand, flung forth.

Jennifer Tseng