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Ghosts and Gods in Multiple Mystery
by Binnie Pasquier
Over Hong Kong
the white moon
is all that speaks as one.
Asia swarms with life forms
powdered and absorbed
for health, for sex, for longevity.
Fungus and lizard
antler and tar-dull tongue
aqua-mottled giant fish sucked right off their bones
chalk-blue birds kept for song.
Heaven is rife with deities.
For these old women sweep the temple floors
carpenters lay turquoise tile
monks empty boxes of silver coins.
I burn incense
feel the fortune-teller’s fingers on my cheeks
can almost believe
Tin Hau, goddess of South China Sea,
takes oranges in lieu of drowning sailors
and that I’ll go home
to shrines among my garden lilies
put the aspects of my life
in places accessed and honored.
Here the god of instinct depicted by a talonned hand
there just outside the gate
the shrine to my father
that he may watch us come and go
and a statue of snow
for a girl grown cold
too logical for song.