Warm and thick,
like wine left swirling in its glass,
you think of Guangzhou’s breath
when winter arrives in New York. There,
you pour Hudson’s whiskey and name it
the same vintages. You step into the room
near Harlem, swallow the light
that tastes of uptown rain and diesel.
Your breath clouds the pane:
another bottle finished,
another Pacific ocean,
restless, rising in your chest.

Harlem clings to the ice like
a bottle left too long in the snow.
You complain about the air lacking glue,
a thinness juxtaposed with Guangzhou’s
thickness. So you pour again,
until the room swells
with a borrowed, tropical proof.
Your eyes hold the sheen of emptied glasses,
where the slow fermentation of memory gone sour,
you drink until the street lamps blurred into lanterns,
until your reflection in the window dissolves
like a label soaked in bourbon.

You swallow each shot like a personal dawn
on this young, foreign land.
Too cold in New York but you call it warm.
Outside, the snow writes nothing on the town.
Not sweet enough, Dionysus whispered
as the moon lifts its veil. Yet it prospered
& prospered & prospered. You ask whether it rains
in Guangzhou tonight—if the Pearl River still runs
wine‑dark, or if the wet streets still
remember how to hold warmth.