by Antony Huen
1
.
Leaves are green, rocks brown,
the gold-backed metropolis orange;
but a performer playing coy
and the other eyeing her red,
and a family blue?
.
2
.
Our new notes depict ‘five themes’ of Hong Kong:
a dim sum gathering 20 dollars
(‘HKD linked to the USD at the rate of 7.8 to 1’),
a swallowtail and flowers 50,
a Cantonese opera show 100,
the hexagonal rock columns 500…
.
3
.
And the thousand dollar note—
an aerial shot of Central and Victoria Harbour
a Caucasian man would capture, risking his life
to climb to the top of the Bank of China?
.
4
.
My father turns a stack of hell money into an origami lotus
for his parents. I bow to their ever-opened eyes.
On the trees a monkey family eye the fruit we offer.
My nephew or niece wrapped in a blanket is crying.
My uncles or aunts offer advice to my cousins
and cousins-in-law, as I busy myself with unwrapping
stacks of lotus-shaped paper, yellow, covered with scriptures
in concentric circles printed in red ink.
.
5
.
Every day he throws paper houses,
dresses, dolls into the fire.
He watches them turn into ashes,
in case any trace is left behind.
.
Antony Huen is a PhD researcher at the University of York. His recent and forthcoming publications include poems in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore and Proverse’s Mingled Voices 3, and articles in Hong Kong Studies and The Compass Magazine. He was one of Eyewear’s Best New British and Irish Poets in 2017.