I.
I’m still walking. Behind the door of the redchurch I think a cenacle is starting. Today’s topic, the Petal Elementary School whooping cough, the epidemic of snail eggs. No one abides by the rule against burning wet leaves.
That never happened, I kept walking. Doodles of trees, branches full of rust and mushrooms, gray hangs heavy over that house. There I watched a Cheep-Cheep spit marbles out of its mouth onto the gameboard. Together with the older girl I counted the tiles forward:
—Red, green, yellow, blue.
A flush of cheesy mushrooms runs up yon tree. If I venture to inspect I will be trespassing. And that could have grave consequences. In times of loathing trespassers may be shot, or prosecuted. Steer clear.
Odd dreams these nights, and lots of sex. The petals of her body close and magnified, how I imagine sex with a god to be.
White Jeep glares behind me, cold fingertips, ball ornaments down a picket fence.
Glare glare glare.
—Just walking around.
My fists sink into my coat pockets and close. Bringing one to my lips, I breathe warmth into it. Think, cold brain. Where are you right now?
That house looks like a fortress: that one like colonial USA: that one like the Italian Renaissance.
Boy I sure have been here a long time. No, a long, long time. Creaking rope threaded through the eye of a wooden bollard. A long long time, 几世几劫. There is a sgraffito of memories on this street corner. Scratch, Fourth of July; scratch, one spring day on my bike.
I saw a violet desert. An Amanita tower rose miles away under a clear moon, the ghostskirt of its annulus rippling in the night. Then it had fallen across the butte. On the wind the dust of their voices fall upon my ear, and all our faces dissolve into eternity.
One, two, one, two. Liangshuang urged caution for my vistas. One, two, one, two, your hand please as we walk through glasshenge. See they’re putting up new towers by the Hudson, a Clathus ruber, see the ferry rock to New Jersey, its cabin of sunset turning, bobbing, rocks off, and diminishes.
I like the sky. Those bands of cloud spin through stripes of blue cuttingly, music off their melting teeth. No? A masque of clouds, a sky ballet. Human artifacts all. No no no. I am just walking around. Leaves clatter down the streets, striking their spurs on the pavement. One by one, crick, crick, crick, crick. Smoke out of the chimneys smells like burnt leaves. And I’d recognize that scent anywhere, like in Chaoyang, near a gap in a brick wall.
Shipwrecked.
Now I’m drinking hot water with a slice of lemon innit confusedly. Is this it? But this is a lot. A static falls against my brain. A lot of lots.
Click, click, click nails on the floor, about as sharp as the whirligig in my window. Blurring days.
I’m in a forest on an island. Nested squares, kisses, Starbucks muffin. Who knew walnuts could taste like candy. The supermarket? The playground? The Tang Dynasty. This is much too much today, alien signal, much too much today. Up and down the curves. Brainwave.
The Ammonite 