Spring Smoke

The minutes ooze into a honeycomb gold.
He reads in a recently discovered notebook

that in 1941 his grandfather refused
to collaborate with the puppet government

and was kidnapped in Shanghai, held
in a smoky loft where he breathed

through a hole in the roof while his captors
unloaded, reloaded revolvers, played

mahjong. He pauses to adjust the light,
wonders if the wasp nest lodged on a beam

in the shed is growing. His grandfather
describes a woman who refused to tell

where her husband was until they poured
scalding tea down her throat and crushed

her right hand in a vise. He glances up
but cannot discern stars through the skylight.

He senses smoky gold notes rising out
of a horn and knows how easy it is

to scald, blister, burst. This morning
when he drew back a wood slat

to swing the gate, he glimpsed a young
pear tree blossoming in the driveway.


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