Beheld
Five
I felt rope under the ground.
I crouched, followed down with my hands
Under the bed, deep into earth below Our House,
The body knew to mourn before I knew, years ahead from now.
Four
That week I cried, couldn’t have known why the corner, by the lamp on the
Four years from then inhabitants splayed out across Earth.
I cried during your births you know, before I flew back to get my mail and to show you my swollen face.
You blipped, saw the future that day.
Three
Once you reached in deep, into earth to get my shoes
packed mud up to my knees, laughing.
I thought I knew the path.
And the useless friend sat in England’s tree trop, smirking at the rescue.
We washed ourselves in the cool farmer’s stream (1), in the Portuguese pond (2), in more than one ocean (3).
We washed and saw each other.
Two
The Earth sweltered and shivered that year to the fingertips of Nepal.
I’d bartered hiking boots, I told the phone.
Maybe you’re the one, you said;
I laughed and said I think we’d know.
With eyes closed, I swam butterfly-netting your dreams book, split your head open in the sparkling Canadian snow
laughing then not laughing.
the One
Spirit charging, body slumped
Some days it all bleeds together, but let the record be lucid
You went back into that house
and denied there was a sun.
Lull
Clinking empty can in my Shanghai share-bike basket.
Gently rattles,
Pleasant as a summer wind that
nudges hanging lanterns, chimes across
a field of breathing grass.
I almost remember apricity, when
she didn’t drop me off that day and
took me home instead.
South Shaanxi cooling Fuxing Lu,
Clunking can in the late-night Calm.
Like the clanging of the old electric
fan; we were dazed in that
corner shop in Laos
in the heat heat heat.
Table for one in Luang Prabang, I’d
observe a blonde woman kneel,
Peek into her young son’s face,
And teach,
Faint European tongue floats over
the slow sounds of the outdoor cafe.
and I ring with longing.
Shivering, but
Steady pedal into the night,
gentle rattle soothes like her tender
reprimand.
Cover: Fujishima Takeji
*****