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collapses on the floor, an ordinary thing.

Such relief when the missing son (Oh,

too many dead sons!) in regular

T-shirt and jeans exits the side door

into the parking lot in daylight.

Those who’ve seen a baby erupt into being

will ever after fear that he’ll as suddenly

slide, slip, crash out of life. Now

you see him, now you don’t.

Father and mother both have nightmares—

war, the war, the wars happening at this

very instant. A missile drops from the star-

warring sky. A rocket shoots up

out of the mined earth. Harming our child,

who is all the ages he’s ever been. Shrapnel

rips through his face, his baby-fat cheeks,

his goateed chin. His mother holds

his head. His father holds his hands—

they’ve been chopped off. The magician’s hands

chopped off. Don’t try to comfort me,

that it’s only a dream, only a dream.

I answer for what I dream. Kuleana hana.

Our son was born year of the Rabbit.

The character rabbit under the character forest

under the radical home equals the word

magic. It’s all right that he didn’t graduate

from a 4-year college, didn’t become

an engineer. Admire the magician most

of all the artists. He makes something out of

nothing, can himself become nothing.

The Ah Sing

family is together again; the parents hug

and kiss their grown son; he hugs and kisses

them back. You are safe. You are safe.

“Happy birthday, Dad. Howzit feel

turning sixty?” The father takes a deep

breath, and answers his son, “Old. I feel

old. I am old. No. No.

I don’t mean my looks. People of color

revenge: We always look good.

I feel time. It’s like a wind

cutting through my skin and insides. When

I was your age, time and I moved

at the same rate. I was in time. I went

with the music. The ancestors say: In China,

time moves slow like yearly rice, andante.

Chan / Zen has been working for 2,500

years to stop time—get that now-moment

down. I want to be where no-beginning–

no-end. I’m not good at staying put.

The older I get, the more tripping out

and flashbacks. I live again feelings

I’ve already gone through. Pink

embarrassments, red guilts, purple guilts.

I see your life too. Your life flashes

before me. I look at you, my son,

and you are every age. I saw you being

born, face first. I saw your face,

eyes, mouth tight, then maw!

You were mouth, all mouth—red

tunnel into a universe. Then I saw

your whole body, your hairy little wet

body—you were so small, how

can you make your way in the world? How

could I, myself small, safeguard you?

I saw you—I see you—sit up—an owlet

in a nest, blinking big eyes at me, at everything,

ears perky, hair perky. You

were not a cuddle baby. You kicked and punched

out of swaddling, out of diapers, out

of the little gown. You sledded down the stairs

in your walker, bawled at the bottom—alive! You

said, ‘My eyes are little, but I can see

so-o-o much!’ Your toddling down-

hill faster and faster, and not falling.

Your announcing, ‘I am Second Bull

of Second Grade.’ Oh, I just now

got it—you were in a fight. You

came out second. I saw you

take your time running the bases—you hit

three men home. Grand slam!

Your popping up out of the ocean—

alive! Rell Sunn the Queen of Makaha

was watching too. Your concentrating for an hour

on the written driver’s test. Your telling us that

you obey the law, you registered for the Draft.

I am constantly remembering you.” Meaning,

I am constantly loving you. I am constantly

worried about you. Old people suffer,

too much feeling, shaking with feeling,

love and grief over too many dear ones,

and rage at all that harms and hurts them.

“Mario, I’m going to China. No,

no, I don’t mean I’m going to die there,

home with the ancestors. I’m curious to know

who I am alone among a billion three

hundred million strangers who look like me.

I am Monkey of Changes.” Hero of the talk-

stories that he raised his son on.

“I regret I missed the Revolution, and ongoing

revolutions. I was kept busy claiming

this country. ‘Love it or leave it.’ ‘Chink,

go back to China, Chink.’ I had to

claim my