ghost parade

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.

A petal unbuttoned like a pocket into another city, where afternoon walked upside down, Small moons hawked time in paper cups and teaspoons traded the names of lonely shutters, Lanterns grew legs and spilled their light into coat-pockets; bridges hummed with combed glass, The Monkey King grinned and folded constellations like maps, tucking rooftops into the bloom.

He turned a petal like a page and spoke the names low, each one a small undoing The city bent inward — shutters feathered shut, dogs folded their bodies into the earth Lanterns kept the beat of something like mourning; even the moon swallowed its loudness The bloom held the last syllables like prayers, and the river carried them away like softened coins

They filed from doorways like inked confessions, feet counting time as if returning rent Lanterns lowered to chest-level; old drums exhaled, each pulse a measured, mourning step The Monkey King's hand set petals atop shoulders, a slow coronation of remembered names The river accepted every folded syllable and moved them downstream, burnishing them into silver

Petals tolled like old coins into a well, each drop a hollow counting of names, Hands went paper-thin and careful, folding loss into the sleeves of their frames, Lanterns fulled their throats and expelled a single slow lament that would not flee, The Monkey King pressed the bloom to his chest; his thumb kept the measure of what decrees, Syllables slid down the river's throat like weights, steady,沉

They rose from the river's catalog—pale figures stitched from syllables and smoke, a slow, rumorless procession, They passed under lanterns as if learning breath again, hands cupped to catch each softened name like a bell, The Monkey King's palm opened; the bloom poured its last petals into the current and went quiet, small as forgiven coin, At morning the spectral march dissolved into reeds; the町