the scattered flowers, pink & yellow, meant

death, meant that a funeral procession

had passed this way, that the person who died

was old & so his death an act of celebration

of a life well-lived, of his sustained value

of his religion, his language, his culture

that looked at death this way— wasn't this

real even though he had seen it only scattered

in flowers, pink & yellow, afterward?

the sun rose, froze, stopped rising & was still

& through the vanishingly brief shadows

pooling under the frozen objects of that

flowing labyrinth he saw a boy flying a kite

so high that it was invisible in the sky &

she was watching the boy, watching the kite

her back turned to him— a figure wound

in a windless window of still-flowing time

in the moment she looked back & recognition

scratched her dream away the kite was

severed, he pointed at it— her gaze clung

to the direction emanating from his direction—

the kite languidly gliding down, then swirling

& plunging into a puddle

i did not believe that the kite was real

when i couldn't see it so high in the sky

the absence she stood for

was the presence he stood in

& i did not think the kite would really be

severed & make such a splash in the puddle

let's go back, she said, i left the door open

the boy liked the idea of hugging the kite close

to his heart no matter how much it stained him

i closed it already, he said, but we'll just open it

again.

~ ajay

12/1/2022