A VISITOR IN DENGFENG

Past the window, snow blossoms

glide down, gilded in hotel neon.

He stares alone in Dengfeng, uncertain why.

Should heavy snow stop tomorrow’s festival,

he’ll have to do nothing

but throw the red fur coat across his shoulders

and wade through drifts, tipsy,

singing like a monk: “Five

li

off—lies Shaolin…”

The phone rings. The gloomy hospital,

the IV drip. The world’s an hourglass, grain by grain

caving in, piling up. She’s alone,

eight days already on the drip,

first Beijing, then Harbin, then again Beijing.

The glass bottle tilts, glucose sways like snow.

In snow, there’s shadow, light, mountain, water, and a path.

On the path, someone stands waiting.

“Let the cold wind—the cold wind blow upon a clean face.”