Hangzhou

Once more, I am stranded in the moonless
passageway, exhaust fumes and food waste

festering the rims, wet summer wind
stirring my hair, thick strands sticking to my forehead

like peeling mangos to pavement. Bottle flies. Smashed
bricks. Sofa shredding its worn-out linen. Cushions

crusting beneath the stacked conduits, wooden planks
gift-wrapped. Hangzhou’s street lanterns offering

a dizzying yellow haze—they are silent soldiers
delineating the straight path in silhouettes gone 

blurred, so reassuringly that I almost forget
September’s griefs jabbing my tinnitus: it starts

as a low hum, then sizzles, the sound of someone
placing a skewer on the grill, pressing against

the heated iron plate till I can hear, unequivocally, the rhythm
of what we expect. But what else would I expect?

I am stranded in a moonless wet market. Rotten
eggs, days-old cucumbers stinking a pool

of rainwater (or blood-water). Salt
on granite. Fish gills flapping the cutting board.

A red-cheeked man in a greasy apron shuffles
sweet potatoes into a hellish oven. Then, a pair of eyes

waver—cherry-colored, startled. Teary, through
the bars of a cage in a shattered echo, staring

right at me. A rabbit. A rabbit. 

“Fifteen yuan,” says the owner. “Per kilogram.”
“You can stir-fry it with peppercorn and ginger.”

Somewhere down the alley, the rough-edged drag
of a rusted tricycle sings flaked iron into the air.

Overhead, a plane pushes swallows past the clouds
as the sky pales with nothingness. I see

the faint flash of planes behind grey tendrils. I hear
a metallic shrill start to ring from a freight truck nearby —

危险. 危险. 危险.
DANGER. DANGER. DANGER. 

To the owner, I say, “I’m taking it home.”