-by Abe Young
Kind eyes, soft eyelids:
He asks the young man,
‘Would you be interested in the story of my past—
Your history?’
She sits quietly beside, content, also attentive toward the young man.
On a napkin conveniently nearby,
He writes a spotty vertical timeline,
Pointing to the date and event with ballpoint
That correlates to each didactic segment of his monologue.
She nods and smiles softly with each date.
The young man sips chrysanthemum petals from a Chinese
teacup,
Balanced in front of two eyes,
Between two thumbs, two forefingers.
The young eyes never leave the kind eyes and telling gestures.
He changes his posture, and deviates from lesson structure,
Tone throwing hints of bold leadership,
Rekindled from nostalgic narrative
Of youthful devising with Shih Ming-teh (a Taiwanese Mandela);
Spoken in underground secrecy, below the omnipresence of
Blacklisting eyes:
‘Should this movement confine its momentum within the clergy,
Or should it extend beyond immunity’s borders?
She explains that a movement outside church would have been less concentrated.
As easily as he began his invitation to the young man.
She recalls the time when the Kuomingdang came into homes, and
Killed anyone, indiscriminately, that was associated
To anyone ‘of suspicion’;
With each mention of murder, she swipes her left hand,
Soft palm up, and vocalizes a thump.
He watches his wife’s eyes, then turns to look at the young man.
And then, deliberately just as naturally, glances back at the woman.
He then thinks, ‘What kind eyes, and soft eyelids
This man and wife share,’ as she speaks,
Softly but forcefully, and she says,
We would run to the mountains for air strike drills; and later
During the 228 Massacre,
We would run to the mountains, just like we did…’
And she chuckles, loudly but soothingly,
As she repeats the joke, repeating the comparison,
Not minding if she stands alone within the personal bubble of the humor.
He touches and stares at the napkin, and simply smiles as she continues,
Our language—enforced with a fine.’ She turns to him
And laughs, ‘Him and his friends cursed at them—
‘Fuck you,’ ‘Fuck off’—
And claimed they were speaking the phonetic equivalent
Of ‘appropriate’ words, in the ‘appropriate’ language;
We girls never stirred trouble like that!’
He quietly smirks, nostalgically and proudly, as she adds, “boys will be
boys.’
The young man looks strangely and curiously at the old
man’s eyes,
And on the curved surface, he sees a crisp reflection
Of a boy, looking into a grown man’s eyes.
The man blinks—a slow
Shutting and reopening of soft eyelids—
And his eyes shift with his wife’s
Across the curves of the young face
As, together, they open up their shared memory
Of a man they once knew:
‘When he was a boy,
And the 228 Incident knocked violently
At his door,
He twisted his small body within
The blankets in the Japanese-style closet.
Ever since his boy-eyes reflected
His mother and father
Murdered beyond the closet doors,
His
mind was shattered and never complete-
ly pieced in one piece again.’