My thumbs break
            through her thin, red dreams and peel
                       the skin of her sleep to uncover
                                 the spun web of Amah’s milky eyes
                                             and the smooth black seed at the center of her vision.

My teeth have come to feed on her hard-won clarity
Visions of the gold mountain she wanted to climb one day

How I bought her like this, how she slept like this
nestled in dappled red shell.

Perhaps a thousand of her, slung into the woven red plastic net
that I bought from the woman on the sidewalk, 1包$2.99 scrawled
on makeshift cardboard sign.

The woman could be my Amah
Perhaps was her

or perhaps ate her too — for sustenance, of course. She took no pleasure in it.

Perhaps I will eat the woman too
Consume her home to erect luxury high rise condominiums

                       I don’t know how to say condominium in Cantonese
                                 I don’t know how to say much of anything in Cantonese,
                                          much less a premonition

so I press three folded green bills into the woman’s outstretched hand
and don’t worry about the penny.

                          The first time I ever ate Amah’s vision, I bit into the seed
                                      because I didn’t know any better
                                               The darkness of my mouth, dappling her eyes
                                                         with the shadows of the mountain, just out of reach.

                    Amah told me to eat around the bitter
                                 to only eat the sweet

because knowing what it means
                is enough.