Winter

January thirty, year two-thousand-two.
I’m a newborn pair of eyes, waking up
not to the walls of a womb,
but to a monochrome
the smile of an elder man
at home

“Rest well,” I think he said
as he tucked me into bed.

You’re an aging set of lines and resin teeth
Between your arms, a newborn, it’s a he
You see the snow that blankets o’er the street
it paints an empty sheet
waiting in serenity,
for hues of budding maple leaves.

“Xiǎo Dōng Dong,” you say—
It spells out Winter in Chinese.

***

Winter, two-thousand-and-four at year two, my feet
are not accustomed to the stairs

    I’m walking a steep
‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎cliff

when suddenly—!

You pick me up
and calm me down

“Xiǎo Dōng Dong, bié kū,”
my Grandpa soothes

Winter at year two is
warmth beneath a single roof.

***

Winter two-thousand-and-ten strikes a blizzard
a ravenous tempest, an oversized blister
a tumour
grows rampant in your lung

You seek Xiǎo Dōng Dong for comfort, but
today he’s distant like the frost
that creeps across
the kitchen window

You call his name

and I reply,

***

Winter twenty-sixteen,
the gap between us

grows
as your breaths grow
short
shorter than the time it took
to lift your feet from the floor
and keep them tucked
in blanket threads
behind your bedroom door

Just as I find the thread
of love I tucked away
afraid
to unravel,
Our roles swap place

Never once
did you take
another step.

I was once
the receiving end
of being changed and fed
and now

It’s too fucking late
I can’t stand to feed you in this bedridden state
I hate that I still procrastinate
in saying 老爷
我爱你
cause your death
is not another due date
that I can negotiate.

***

Tonight,
your memories forgotten,
eyes blind
you offer me your watch
as if it could

rewind

If so
I would take it, cause the time
I’ve forsaken is far more costly
than a diamond timepiece

I hate that I watch
your last moments
as I barely remember
our first ones together.

Winter twenty-seventeen
You gripped my fingers tightly

yet Winter
already feels icy

now he spends every second
counting seconds
as if praying for a second
chance

Winter twenty-seventeen
I’m a newborn pair of eyes, waking up
not to the walls of a womb
but to a monochrome

the smile of an elder man

finally at home.

“Rest well,” I think I said
as I tucked his portrait into bed.

***

Winter twenty twenty three
I see the snow that blankets o’er the street
it paints an empty sheet
waiting in serenity,
for the hues of budding maple leaves.

“Xiǎo Dōng Dong,” I say—
It spells out Winter in Chinese.