It is easy to love… in memory; the hard thing is to love them when they are in front of you. John Updike

Love Poem: To Taiwan

Sitting at my Ikea desk

Staring at the California sunshine,

I think about how much

I miss you.

I miss your elegant mountains,

How they stand green

And proud

underneath clear skies.

I miss your streets,

Lined with stall after stall,

Wisps of smoked beef and smoked cigarettes intertwining in the midnight air.

I miss the sweltering heat

only your sun can shine,

And I miss your smell of gasoline

and grime, your crammed run-down buildings that shelter the most extravagant chandeliers, and the most lavish carpets—

You remind me that even in this selfish world, peeling paint and scrawled graffiti don’t define me.

Here in San Francisco,

West

of the Pacific Ocean remains too far

to reach.