Chasing Phantom Fish

As children, we were ravenous—
chopsticks clashing, plates swept bare.

Fare sparse, simple, and seasonal—
daikon, cucumber, tomato.
Napa cabbages stacked
under mother's quilt on the winter porch.

We had rationed grains, oils, and meats—
lucky to find fat pork for oil;
to trade rice coupons for farmer’s eggs.

I still hear wild greens calling— 
purslane and dandelion from the yard, 
mugwort from street corners. 
Each foraged leaf breathes a memory
served on mother’s plates.

I chase phantom fish in dreams,
scales glinting in moonlit streams.
The aroma of ginger and scallion rising—
lingering, just beyond reach.

Now, my gut revolts against abundance.
I must heed my body’s shifting script—
where my eyes' plum-dark desire meets
my stomach's simmering satiety.

I must listen to rice speaking in handfuls,
fish in whispers, 
vegetables in colored tones—

-

Winged Winter

Weighed down by broken breaking news, I hear
carolers at my door, breaking the moonless dark:
     May we sing? A girl waves her wooden wand.
     Skirts flutter, voices sail, bodies sway like wings——
 All I want for Christmas…is you.
     Hey sweetie, trills the chickadee from the snow-laden pine.
Once, I cursed icy roads; now this falling feels a blessing—
I lift both hands to catch snowflakes, pray the wind carry
    them westward to quench infernos where a man clutches
    a garden hose, his singed face
a shadow of resolve. Beauty burns—
    yet persists unexpectedly as half a hundred
Canada geese march toward me at Costco’s stark lot—
Leaders open wings, shepherding eager ones into position—
    calming my fear of a charge. I can’t resist
    their order, their sheer number, adapting to, reshaping
this fractured Anthropocene world, reminding me of
    echoing waterfowl when I fled the Northeast—
how they lingered by southern ponds that tempered waters
where seven visitors came daily—
    egrets, ibis, herons. Then, on the day I bid farewell,
    nearly three dozen birds arrived. How do they know
the timing of goodbye?