Sometimes our senses are on high alert, taking in an abundance of sight, sound, smell, taste. The market where my aunties shop in Chiang Mai is this kind of place, so rich in everything that I wonder how I can take it all in. Yet it is all stored somewhere inside me, each sense absorbing a piece of the story. Brush away just part of the dust covering a memory and soon the whole picture emerges again. Try it. Close your eyes.
If I were to close my eyes,
the sounds and smells would
be the same as I remembered.
Smoky sweetness of small
bananas on a grill, high
Northern dialect voices of
women selling food,
clank of coins, shuffle
of feet. Eyes open,
and everything is true.
The grills line up on the
ground, forming a room
of smoke. The women sit
on high stools, food they
made – steaming curries,
vegetables, pastries –
spread out like skirts before
them. People move between
stands, reaching, buying,
bags bulging. I search for
the source of the clanking
coins, and then memory
clicks into place. There,
at the bottom of the still
broken escalator, she is
standing, still standing
after all these years. Neat
clothes, short hair, pale
skin, and eyes open, but
her gaze empty, blind.
Standing there, shaking the
tin can of clanking coins.
Amphibious 