Mount Davis Road
The driveway winds uphill, our taxi brushes
against heart-shaped leaves wrapped with vines,
into a clearing. The relics of last year's typhoon
remain, tower blocks absent of voices.
Through an open window, two plastic covered chairs
sit side by side, in expectation. A scrap of newspaper
rolls across the floor. In the corner, the Kitchen God
still hovers leaning forward from the altar. My mother
stands on a slab of patio, searches for Lantau invisible
behind trees strangled in ivies. The family villa
plowed under, replaced by abandoned buildings.
She wipes her eyes, snaps her purse shut, clamps lids.
She imagines Ah San running across a floor
so polished that two amahs run forward -
one right side up, one upside down.
Children run in amah's shadow, laughing.
She opens her eyes-This was my dream world
now just a dream-her lips seal the past.
Once upon a time, my brother carried me
across the verandah to look upon the sea.
~ Annie Bien received her first playwriting commission at the Soho Theatre Company in London. Poetry: Quattrocento, Snakeskin, Lily, Loch Raven Review, Worm, Cadenza, Centrifugal Eye, Kaleidowhirl, Miller's Pond, Mimesis, Times Online. Fiction: The Wonderful World of Worders, Guildhall Press. A Pushcart nominee, runner up for the Georgetown Review Contest 2006, and on shortlists for the Guardian Poetry Workshop, Strokestown 2007 International Poetry Competition, and the Keats-Shelley Prize 2007. She studies Tibetan Buddhist text translation with Robert Thurman and Lozang Jamspal.