Ingrid Cui

Taiyaki

When you waved the flag around
the riverbank, I was already gone
 
Into the water, to paint the waves
with my palette of aqua.
 
The nymphs playing in storm
stopped to watch, and with a 
 
Silly shake of their heads,
continued on. I have wondered
 
For many eons, if colour
could capture form; but you 
 
Simply smiled, and surrendered
into the wind. When we fish
 
In the eternal clearing,
it is almost as if dusk never settles,
 
But dreams till the morn. 
In my childhood, I picked plums,
 
And gave them to my mother, 
and that was all.
 
Today we must talk in images
but someday, perhaps;
 
I will reach out and grasp 
the heart of words, and liberate
 
This sky from blue. Then poetry,
unbecome tautology, will swirl
 
Around me, and reconcile land
with dominion. I once heard it said, 
 
You are like two planets in harmony
and I, looking from afar
 
See the world burning,
but keep on cutting my vegetables.
 
Please live this life for me,
and aching, I say yes;
 
It is but a thing
I exchange the daisies for,
 
The peddler’s song at the supermarket
seized in a fraught spring rain.
 
Stillness at high noon
and taiyaki sizzling on the stove;
 
There is so much love
in two oranges on the table.

---

Ingrid Cui is a student at the University of Toronto. You can find her on Instagram @charlatan_charlemagne.