market elegy

A wild flower flickered in the Monkey King's palm—small as proof, loud as a crown He taught it tricks of wind and riddle-speech, to cart the dusk and tumble kingdoms down Its petals rewrote maps: veins as poems, each fold a compass that makes old borders frown So from that stubborn bloom a new legend grew, stitching history to song and earning its own renown

At dusk the Monkey King cupped the bloom like lantern-light for vanished vows, Each petal exhaled a roster of ruins, names folded into the hush of boughs, It remembers our names, soft as ash, murmured into the river's slow mouth, Farms unlatched their memories; the moon stitched back the silhouettes of towns, It remembers our names, a reed-song passing under bridges and through crowns, The flower—

The flower exhaled a low, rocking hush that braided night into a mother's coil, Petals unspooled lull and ledger both, naming hearths until the smoke forgot its hurry, Lanterns bobbed like slow-heart answers; each name folded into the palm of sleep, The Monkey King's thumb kept the beat, patient as moon-breath, coaxing cities soft and small.

He rocks the blossom in his palms, each sway a slow, deliberate ache, Petals fold like sleepy lips, taught to sing the names of vanished rooms, Lantern-streets inhale; shutters answer with the hush of hands that used to hold, Night bends into a gentle mourning, rocking the map until its edges fold.

Petals became small moons and slipped between the King's fingers like lullaby coins, A street unstitched itself and shutters took wing, reading each house as an open eye, Chairs learned to breathe and sung the rooms' names into the seams of a paper sky, Under that slow unreason the bloom arranged impossible neighborhoods and the night obeyed.

Under his palm the petals thinned into pale satellites, each a slow orbit singing household names A river of stars unspooled the towns into constellations; bridges blinked like quiet beacons He counted breaths as orbital rounds; each uttered name steadied a small world into hush Comets eased their tails and the whole night folded like a cradle while his thumb kept the galaxy's time

His thumb drums slow; he sings each name like a bead threading the dark with light, Petals toll in small bell-phrases, a round of household syllables that circle the heavens, He repeats — breath, beat, name — and the constellations fold their voices to the rhythm, Night replies in silver cadences, every answered doorway ringing home inside the bloom.

At dawn the market stalls remembered the names of bread and sorrow, awaking like bellies stretched by song, Cart-wheels hummed old price-songs; vendors spoke in one-breath liturgies of ginger and grief, A widow's apron returned a child's laugh; a ledger opened and spilled coin-curses into kindness, Fishwives and potters traced their family names into the wooden planks until the boards forgave the岁