The minutes ooze into a honeycomb gold.
He reads in a recently discovered notebook 

that in 1941 his grandfather refused 
to collaborate with the puppet government 

and was kidnapped in Shanghai, held 
in a smoky loft where he breathed 

through a hole in the roof while his captors
unloaded, reloaded revolvers played 

mah-jongg. He pauses to adjust the light,
wonders if the wasp nest lodged on a beam 

in the shed is growing. His grandfather 
describes a woman who refused to divulge

where her husband was until they poured 
scalding tea down her throat and crushed 

her right hand in a vise. He glances up 
but cannot discern stars through the skylight.

He senses smoky gold notes rising 
out of a horn and knows how easy it is

to scald, blister, burst. This morning 
when he drew back a wood slat 

to swing the gate, he glimpsed a young 
pear tree blossoming in the driveway.