Pappy

I let him pick me up late from Yio Chu Kang MRT
though he falls asleep during the 9:30 news.
I smell of spice! spice! spice!
(The thought of India is a lovely
exploding cardamom in his ulcer-prone mouth)
He thinks of lice! lies? lice!
And warns me not to burn incense.
"Very smelly leh," he wrinkles his nose,
back hunched in a sheer white pajama-shirt.
Oh, Pappy.

When I went away to India
it was like he threw a kite to the sky
where it roamed tentative but quite, rather free
breathing sky air and kissing wispy cirrus
floating on cirrocumulus and plummeting
through Big Bad Cumulonimbus Storm Cloud;
they don't usually form in his head.
When the kite came back via Arabic wind
he had to rein it in a little for fear
it would get stuck in a tree someday.
There are many in Singapore but only the
wild untamed ones are worth a Singapore Dollar.
Sometimes only trees in a Mexican orchard
streaked with golden rays, delicious mud,
a lightness you don't quite feel here
are pine fresh fun yes yes yes.

So, mister Papa

I will miss you terribly one happy day
I will be so sad I don't know how to breathe, and-
"I love you," mouthed Triton, Ariel's father,
as her red hair flapped in the lashing sea breeze.