Emperor of Air
BY DEREK CHAN
After Yuki Tanaka
Between car factories
and the river named
after an old god, we counted
rickshaws glistening over
the Kowloon harbor,
plastic flowers turning
in apartment windows.
He wasn’t much of a man
sitting on a curb,
mouthing
Happy Birthday
to the fireflies circling
my head
still, I loved him
like a father.
He was the unending
affection of an empty
stomach, a hank of hair
scattered
on a bedside table,
the last cigarette
haggled
for wontons
on the day I cried
for my lost pencils.
Soon, I’ll be air,
he said, and only your lungs
can keep me
from disappearing. It was the kind of story
I liked, and wanted him to teach me,
though he never could
read a book
all the way through.
Once, in a dream
or not
I followed him back to the melting
grasses
of his summer village. We climbed
until the sun
sagged from sight, our bodies
slick & lonely
in a cloud
of purple gnats. I had no language
for our shadows playing ahead of us,
the way he spat blood
onto azaleas
when he thought I was
picking stones.
Why disappear,
I wanted to ask,
why be less
than the sound of birches
swaying strange as sand
from a long evening fever—
We sat for a while & listened
as I leaned over
to pull his breath
apart like cicada wings
just to
slow it down.
Pointing to the emptiness
above
the village, he said,
You must be the pillar
which holds up
all this air.
I did not understand
his trembling kneecaps, slower
than the moon—
making the moon
brighter.
I wanted to peck out
those lights below me
& the people touching
each other inside
wind & rain,
but my lips were too busy imitating
the butterflies
collapsing
on his forehead.
The next time I saw him
he was spread across
the hospital bed
like a thin lake. I stroked
his cold face
& he wasn’t
very sad.
Don’t try to dream, I said,
I will eat red flowers with you
& forget —