We’re sitting at a dinner table talking about the universe
As a newscaster shrieks behind us, bending truths we thought unspoken.
Our whiskey-curdled breath promises philosophical integrity.
I open my mouth to share the secret
And out tumble my teeth.
You declare
We need to decay:
Our existence is balanced—no it is
given meaning through its decomposition;
Puzzling because we’re holding
destruction in our hands right now
And it doesn’t feel like a secret.
A year later and my toes still curl into discarded
orange peels on the temple floor,
Their skins nothing more than prayers of regeneration to an earth forgotten.
Around me furls of smoke praise forgiveness to
a caved-in ceiling
I think we should all be begging for
forgiveness, are you?
In the car, we’re singing off-tune and learning how
to throw a punch
(use the elbow, not the fist);
We’re speeding in the rain, convinced of our invincibility Because Steely Dan says so crackling through the disc changer.
Years before I watched Cambodian monks smoke cigarettes at the foot of a waterfall,
Faces not yet carved by laughter and shoulders weary with history;
Smoke twisted through the air, and caressed faces of families and tourists alike-divinity in its second-hand forms.
Is this how we learn to rebuild?
News headlines flash through our screens: the sins of a country sit heavy.
Rebuilding no longer abstract and foreign—punctured straight through the pit
How many oranges does it take to build a new country?
Peel another one, unfazed how its innards bleed pulp into your palms.
The smoke of the monks cigarettes nursed the smoke of an incense,
Placed for another Buddha in a temple across the ocean.
Firecrackers spent on the floor and orange slices clutched in small, sticky fingers—
Halfway across the world is me: knees cool, pressed to tile,
Incense in my eyes,
Wondering if the Buddha accounts for language barrier,
Wondering what forms divinity takes.
I’ve never grown anything
But I’ve listened to stories about California native species,
Most things are invasive;
I have orange pulp in my fingernails
And smoke in my hair.
Smoke twists into the foggy of a
Korean mountainside.
I think I got divinity stuck in my
fingernails there.
We moved through prayer 100
times, stringing a bead for each
refrain.
The monks spoke in a tongue that
wouldn’t fit in my mouth.
But ritual is ritual and the necklace fits
around my neck.
I leave citrus in the hair I braid
before 5 am shifts,
And smoke on shoulders I grasp
in passing.
My orange peels are blistering in
the sun,
Out on the balcony where I
forgot them.
We might need more than oranges,
But compost needs to start somewhere.
The best planting is done with waste.
I’ll press my sticky hands to the heart of every Buddha I see:
Our best shot at divinity.
