My first-born was a snake spirit and swam free.
She is cultivating even now,
somewhere closer to the Buddha.
Let’s say the fireworks were in celebration.
My second-born a hollow golden egg,
a shell without a pearl, one flat mirror.
Other things you were not: a coin
over an eye, a kidney bean.
My third a beacon, a candle, a ray,
flickered and returned to the elements:
fire, metal, air. Smoke. The slowest
heartbeat for the longest time.
What did they know of me—a landscape,
a pocket, a globe? The length and breadth
of all things / the skies / the seas. Such wonder,
every moment. I gave all I could. The color red.