The Ghost Towns of East Bloggistan

The jade slipped from my wrist
with the smoothness of water
leaving the mountains,

silk falling from a shoulder,
melon slices sliding across the tongue,
the fish returning.

The bracelet worn since my first birthday
cracked into thousand-year-old eggshells.
The sound could be heard
ringing across the water

where my mother woke in her sleep crying thief.
Her nightgown slapped in the wind
as he howled clutching his hoard.

The cultured pearls.
The bone flutes.
The peppermint disks of jade.

The clean hole
in the center, Heaven:
the spaces we left empty.

- Cathy Song, "Spaces We Leave Empty"