Week Two, Year of the Dog
The jets are back. I’m writing.
There’s no connection. It’s morning
and I’ve slept too well, dreamed of people
from long ago, my friend
who’s married now to a woman who arouses
suspicion, the way she looks
at him, the stark age difference,
her calculating parents.
We were playing cricket. Ten years later
it still stings that I didn’t get a bowl
in that match, the words of a team mate
afterwards, you batted like a girl.
It rained all the next week.
There are thirty shells on my table
from Thailand. Tiny perfections.
There might be a God, this morning.
So- poetry, a run, some Chinese study.
I have a hand woven Naxi rug
to put on my wall- a good day
when I brought that- visits to arrange,
a woman to avoid writing about,
coffee before all that.
Then one more week of this.