Pagoda

For Asa

by Zoe Du

A pagoda, ivory white. 

Elegant octagon, low-ripped wood.

I shall never forget how it stood for us

when we were little:

legs splayed under our dress, bare feet

touching stone, touching wood —

the flat, glossy steps that led us up the seven-storied pagoda.

On summer nights we huddled together, against 

a wind-blown hole. On top of the zigzagging staircase, 

a story passed between our tongues. Back then

we held each other in verse, in fits of diamonds and dragons.

Knees knocked by rain, we etched syllables into stone.

And where the marble bent under our nails,

the figments crawled through our fingers.

A pagoda is a palace for the deceased. A plum of secrets,

its sapped songs flowing onto the young girls’ lap.

Until we fell asleep, and the sculpted ceilings moved

beneath the shadows. The double-eaves fidgeted

where dust played on the crossbeams.

We slept till our limbs drove into the pedestals,

and the pedestals sank into our sleeves —

A pagoda is a house to home us.

In it we grew as children.

And under its arched doorways we counted our wishes

each time, before we left.

We stepped onto the silent earth, chanting hieroglyphs —

one by one — as we walked. Towards the rolling fields

and departed.