There are nights you lie awake, tracing
the path your lingqi takes
through your meridians, again,
again, again,
the way you traced each character your mother wrote —
your child hands, her wooden brush, ink ground
by your mother's hands;
Nights you wake up with old smoke in your nose,
your parents' blood staining the wood on which you kneel,
you cannot feel your core, until —
You wake, remember, breathe that old smoke out,
and trace, trace, trace the warmth spilling
out, around, and through —
Your lower dantian's full, and full of light.