Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Poetry 2019 | Page 76

sì,
the days pass
scrubbing decks is
more better now,
i don’t even mind
when they come back with
their tales of
mesmerising women
valleys with no end
palaces of entrancing grandeur
because i have friends
(what a strange word, friend.
the word itself has end, yet,
you never want a friendship to end)
and they have their own tales:
dainty girls back home
pranks on their neighbours
stealing roosters, so the
cock-a-doodle-do doesn’t
wake the town up-
but! when the men bring back
an egg, larger than
the size of my two hands;
clasped together when I
pray to God, asking
Him for safe travel
and for my friendship
to last,
all eyes are on it.
and they stay
on it.
wǔ,
night falls;
our voices
ring out
like the bell they ring,
from the crow’s nest,
when they spot land.
he wants to take the egg, he says,
a cabin boy, a little taller than me.
it’s beautiful, exotic,
nothing like it at home.
cabin boy says
amid nods and murmurs
of agreement