Hong Kong: Songs from the Rooftops
“In these shaken times, who more than you holds
In the wind, our bittermelon, steadily facing
Worlds of confused bees and butterflies and a garden gone wild”
--梁秉鈞, Bittermelon
V. Mong Kok: 一口
The line that leads from the quiver of your lower lip
ricocheting between the sounds of click'd teeth biting
and the stretching of your arm past the falling sky as snow
as nipple as pussy as hope gallop'd in some redemptive story:
that those folk risk more then the calumny of the climate stalks and skwalk.
and still the entirety of the lipping skirt, the sleeping pose, the pillows askew'd:
lip past all that as you drive through the green-background albatross.
and our bodies fall like flake, our arms like breathed smoke, our lives like moss
fingered slowly and blinded.
and the turnpike speaks of the sea and the tossed tired stones of your hope:
and we rise to meet what was not expected,
no lions in winter,
aflight
Longing over the pocket of the sea's lungs before flight
we make our testaments breath
e, elong and gated, we
strong, agile our bent bodies wiser,
wing our teeming hope as light
pinpoint in a murky pupil,
swim as the scent of red Cypress, Camphor and the skeleton of Cinnamon cracking along the shadows in a Thai massage room. Mahagony our courage. Hunger
Our spines crackle like the peel of forest wood chipping
We headed for shore
Winging of flag and your accented tales. Once we were tapped From a hand-made book, damp with photos and black the frames of our galloping time, clocking with electrical tape.
Taped, turned, tackled & thumbed—
Winging of flag and your accented tales
Above the rooftops of Hong Kong, flaging
Bone and feather-less wing, knobby beak and elongated rib of our throats: all that is left of our singing when the song has gone wrong, all that is left when the singing has gone rung.
we build our bodies then around our homes, ghostlight, teacup, mooncake, peelingpaint, bamboo cage, teeth in the glass and all
Is this then, all we knew?
