UNFINISHED JOURNEY

Midnight. A string of words roars

streaking from the dark tunnel, dim blue signal light

flashing by. A train drags its umbilicus

through the trestle, my hollow chest

still trembling beneath the sleepers, pressed tight

to the arc of sky, crushed, flattened out.

You know, I

am always this way, wobbling

up at midnight, sipping water,

sitting. Letters. In the phone a droning snowfield.

Spread across the keyboard, shipped off by my own hands. Crossing mountains,

the tips of redwoods scuffing my thirsty face,

their boughs rasping. Or on the ground

shattered ice in my eyebrows. You know, sometimes

I walk beneath the cape lilac on Weisi road, carrying green vegetables.

I shove open the door, imagining your shadow. The children squeal with joy

and rush my legs. Rain slips down the windowglass.

The house starts to shake, the glide of silent wheels

towing night’s chimneysmoke. Sounds of the city hush.

Downstairs the cobbler plucks a nail from his mouth,

swings the hammer, drives hard through life’s sole, no

hesitation. These junkmen

haul cartloads of scrap, pocketing small coins,

their joints strong. You know, that festival

of fragrant weeds, where we anchored,

till dawn the cuckoos calling from distant woods,

from shadowed trees. Your long lashed eyes

shutting. At my hand, a glass of cool water,

the wisps of dying coals. Standing by the window

I think: I love this world. Once,

in the cleft of a moment, I had a chance.

It steered slowly close, then turned the corner.

I’m always this way. Staring forever at the screen,

a string of words leaping from darkness. A dusky field.

A miner’s lamp racing backward.

Hills. Ponds. Night grinds my limbs.

Misery. Monotony. Never despair.

You know, at this moment one star illuminates

my bowed head: lifting the alms-bowl for rice.

An iron arm drives the iron wheel driven by a piston

—a tongue of flame shoots up. Past the window

a hung diaper, slowly rising.