I.

In a small bus heavy with people,

I find myself lost in a tangle

of a language I almost but still don’t understand.

So I listen with my eyes and the faces around me

tell stories—

a basket beside a green field of small red

            peppers,

a courtyard with a black bicycle from the 1950’s, and miles

of road made of stone bricks,

the footsteps of generations.

I hear the breath of a hundred

coal burning winters,

see the gnarled fingers of labor’s life.

Sometimes the young stand to let their elders

sit but the driver never comes to a complete stop

for anyone.

Pressing against my arm, a bundle of green vegetables so fresh

a caterpillar is still busy.

When I was a boy, I pulled half-eaten leaves and

watched as the caterpillars kept eating.

When I grew bored with the back and forth,

back and forth,

I would toss them onto an anthill, then watch the frenzy

overcome the ants

and soon the caterpillars.

Boys are like that somedays.

But standing in this bus I am not that boy

or the country I am from or even a foreigner.

I am just another person trying to get somewhere­…

                        the old man from his field,

the woman to the market,

the small girl holding her grandfather’s pant leg

            —black hair pigtails, pink jacket—

smiling back at me.

II.

The Japanese teacher is far

from your 101 years (and counting).

Her hair is grey

but straighter

than the last time I saw you.

I watch as her aging fingers unzip the pocket

of her purse, reach in, search around inside until emerging

with two small chocolate bars.

She smiles as she hands me one, a satisfied motion

in her gesture, as though she knew

I was now remembering you.  The way

your hands were so exact

              when tying a knot.

The way you used your middle

            and ring fingers

to hold  then tuck the end through.  Your chickens

in their coops are a favorite memory, the smell

of their waiting, beaks probing holes in their caged fate.

I always tried to escape the shade of your umbrella.

            Only a short distance from the bus stop to

your home but long enough for the boys to laugh.

I guess when you’re a boy, an umbrella is only

for the rain. 

III.

Four four two.  What a number for a Chinese bus.

Seven thousand miles away and your baggage is still mine.

The first and only car you bought new—1965 Oldsmobile 4-4-2—

Big, heavy, and faster than your friend’s Camaro.

When I said I wanted to restore it, I meant that I wanted us to restore it…

            preferably while you were still alive.  After all,

I’m not the one who left it sitting in the Arizona sun and monsoon rains to die

a slow death of cancerous rust and neglect. 

I tried my best to finish your backyard.

Your shovel was too slow so I used a dump trunk.  Many, many, dump trucks.

But of course, as you always warned, the loosely laid dirt was no match for water

and gravity and a half-assed job.  The monsoons turned dirt to mud and the mud slid

down the bank of your yard.  So I proudly placed a drain pipe,

stout with concrete!  I looked outside during a fantastic storm and the yard was underwater—

                                    the whole damn thing looked ready to slide into the wash!

I sloshed my way to the drain, reached in and pulled up handfuls of sticks

and leaves.  The drainpipe groaned at me!  It actually made noise…

like the low howl of a strong suction,  like the year I felt myself sucked down

            drowned my way through      dark pipe         lost churning   lost

   way back      lost memories  knowing only nothing

            about you        then I       then spewed out     coughing   somewhere     someone else

Time Lapse