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don’t know, I work 2 jobs.

I moonlight, do the work-for-money

and the writing. I wish I

had thought to be a stay-at-home mom.

(How interesting: The girl makes wishes for

the future. The eldress, for the past.)

I, too, send money to villages, the promise

made to family when leaving them. My BaBa,

who arrived in New York City when Lindberg

landed in Paris, vowed: I will not

forget you. I will always send money

home. The Pilipina maids see

me a lazy dowager, and hate me.

Crone. Witch. Aswang. Old woman

going about with long hair down

like a young woman’s, but white. Normal

in Berkeley, beautiful in Berkeley. And in the Philippines

I’m already in costume for Aswang Festival,

day before Hallowe’en, days after

my birthday. Come on, fête me and my season.

On the grass in a city park, our male traveller

feeling his lone hobo self, laid

his body down with backpack for pillow.

In San Francisco, it was 2 o’clock the night

before. Going west from California’s

shores, jumping forward in time, he’d arrived

at the house of maternity, the land of migrations.

Sleeping in public, jet-lagged, soul

not caught up with body, body

loose from soul, body trusted itself to

the grass, the ground, the earth, the good earth,

and rested in that state where dream is wake,

wake is dream. Conscious you are conscious.

Climb—fly—high and higher, and know:

Now / Always, all connects to all.

All that is is good. His ancestresses—

PoPo Grandma and Ma,

so long in America—are here, the Center.

Expired, Chinese people leave go of

cloudsouls that fly to this place.

Breathe, and be breathed. The air smells

of farawayness. Seas. Trash. Old

fish. The Chinese enjoy this smell,

fragrant, the hong in Hong Kong, Fragrant Harbor.

Yes, something large, dark, quiet,

receptive—Yin—is breathing, breathing me

as I am breathing her. My individual

mind, body, cloudsoul melds

with the Yin. Mother. I’m home. But

stir, and the Land of Women goes. Wittman

arose to bass drums of engines—multiple

pulses and earth-deep throbs. Forces

of rushing people. Monday morning go-

to-work people. The City. (The late riser

has missed the tai chi, the kung fu,

the chi kung. While he was sleeping, the artists

of the chi, mostly women, Chinese

women, were moving, dancing the air / the wind /

energy / life, and getting the world turning.

They’d segued from pose to pose—spread

white-crane wings, repulse monkey,

grasp bird by tail, high pat

on horse, stand like rooster on one leg,

snake-creep down, return to mountain.

They played with the chi, drawing circles in the sky,

lifting earth to sky, pulling sky

to earth, swirling the controllable universe.

Then walked off to do their daily ordinary tasks.)

Wittman, non-moneymaker, fled

the financial district. Already dressed,

the same clothes asleep and awake, he merged

with a crowdstream, and boarded a westbound

train. Go deep in-country.

Find China. Hong Kong is not China.

The flow of crowd stopped, jammed inside

the train. Wittman was one among the mass

that shoved and was shoved onto the area

over the coupling between cars. They

would ride standing pressed, squashed,

breathing one another’s breath, hoisting

and holding loads—Panasonic and Sony

ACs—above heads. The train

started, the crowd lurched, the air conditioners

rocked, almost fell but didn’t. Men

prized through the packed-tight crowd,

squeezed themselves from one car to the next,

and back again. A man, not a vendor,

jostled through, lugging a clinking

weight of bottled drinks that could’ve smashed

the upturned faces of the short people. Bags

smelled of cooked meat. I have food,

I can do anything. I know I can.

I know I can. Hard-seat travel.

Suffer more, worth more. The destination

more worth it. The Chinese have not

invented comfort. People fell asleep

on their feet. They work hard, they’re tired,

grateful for a spot of room to rest. Rest.

Rest. A boy slept astraddle his father,

father asleep too, 2 sleeping

heads, head at peace against head.

Had Wittman and his son ever shared