Desert

Nine Days

Ching-In Chen

in the green sea, you barter with eye and ear
quarantine flowers mask up blooms 
only in the first light
they who grow Aquifolicaceae and sing behind window
as blue as the water used to be

in the middle of the market a voice opens like a bell
limited Sunday
audience 
between open and close,
singing 'Did its people want too much too?'*

the first time we heard of sun ray and light rain

the question we wanted a neighbor in the next porch
to leave this dry dust claims a thief

we wanted to turn to wave hello
our heads away since the lonely still make friends
from the sound of copper

the voice grew a crowd calling to this skin and that
still making little library friends who lost their
jobs

over time the traders waited
for the voice to unlatch the door
for others they had never
seen with shimmering
fabric to gather
for everything to occur in the span of a throat

you never asked for much, even little ghost hands on uncleaned books 

an open shell or a metal song
we first wished
for you to exit and then leave suspicious traces

we offered soup, a thimble
of coffee, a city
of homegrown vegetables

we felt your desire to leave
in our bones and we worried
trash removes itself out the door sees no one
wipes down its handles good and steady and
clean

in the green sea, you barter with eye and ear

Notes: There's a line: 'Did its people want too much too?' from the song 'Nobody' from Mitski.