There comes a time when you stop hoping
for love. What then to live for?
There are substitutes: the lunch
on your lap, the power lines overhead,
the heritage buildings lining
your neighborhood —
razed yesterday, absent today, raised tomorrow
from the dead. These black-bean
noodles never nourished
you, only gave you that impression,
but perhaps their imprint was enough.
What sweetness touches you now,
you must thank if you notice. Trash
can be delicious, tart as limes. There is mercy
in the way milk sours. Convenience
in the way we throw our spoils
away. Because some emotions are made
of plastic, junking up inside. Your debris
becomes your whole composition —
your oeuvre of sorrow, it kills entire whales,
it litters your whole ocean — a super-isle
of flotsam, never to decompose.
Every night you beg it to die,
and every morning your wish is granted.
