Inside the White Paper

The sun treads outside the house.

I’m the only one home,

an idler at my ease.

Each day, three meals.

I rinse the frail bok choi,

my hands

afloat in the sink’s pale translucence.

My breath is far off

while the pot’s white grains

steam to cooked rice.

The screen door stands straight as a boy attendant,

watching me sleep

through the afternoon’s lights and shadows.

In my mailbox

only fine strands of bat-hair.

At home

one waits for nothing.

Pipes turn tight around the house gripping, menacing,

packed with water and power,

surrounding my whole being.

Flip a switch,

and before me, behind me

flick perfect fire, perfect water.

The sun and moon hang in the sky,

day after trackless day.

Beside tanned farmers

I bend and thump the oval watermelon,

the yellow blush on its back

a sunset arcing outside me.

Not for anything

but to live.

Like twisting on a trickle of tapwater.

The fragrance of steamed rice walks through the house,

its precipice and uncertainty

known to me alone.

Which knife

slices the skin of this world.

To live, exhaling after inhaling,

my fire

wrapped forever in my paper.