Creative Commons Flickr Geson Ratnow

Paper boats conjure dreams
of petals soaked by
scents of the
ocean.

Traveling boats
float in shadows
people
who have a simple hope
for happy lands,

but white markers sink
in sandy earth
marking graves of people
who cannot resist new germs.

‘Once watched paper boats,’
grandfather paternal says
in Vietnamese
but nobody understands

no translators here.

So shadow puppets dance
for petals
falling from kumquat boughs.

(c) June Perkins