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manners East and West to ask cost.

Truth-caring Wittman answered, “One

thousand dollars one-way.” Impossible

to explain redeeming coupons, miles, life

savings. “Waaah! One thousand dollars!?!

What do you do to make such money?”

“I write.” Impossible to explain the life

in theater. The moneymaking wife. “So,

how do you make your money?” “Farmer

peasants don’t make money, don’t

use cash.” They live as most human

beings have lived, directly on ground that gives

work and sustenance. “Mr. American Teacher,

will you marry me, and get me out

of the countryside?” “But I’m already married.

I have a wife and son.” “No matter.

No problem. Marry me, a Chinese

woman. Chinese women are beautiful,

kind, and good.” “I came but today to the country-

side, and do not want to leave it.”

The brother spoke up, “I want to

stay in the countryside too. I learned

the lesson Chairman Mao sent us down

to learn: The people who work the earth know

true good life.” “Where were you

sent down from?” “Shanghai City.”

The Shanghainese took the worst

punishment in the 10 Years of Great Calamity.

“We read. Both of us, readers. So sent

down, Moy Moy to Xinjiang,

I to another part of Xinjiang,

far far west, beyond Xizang,

almost beyond China. There are Uighur

Chinese, Muslim Chinese,

Xizang Chinese. The women—

they’re so free—whirl and twirl,

raise their arms to the sky. The music comes

from bagpipes. Pairs of women lift and

lower the grain pounder—bang bang bang bang—

a music too. Their religion has to do with

buffalos. They collect the skulls and long horns,

and put them on a wall or on the floor,

and that place changes to a holy place.

That area was made good. I felt

the good. I am able to know Good.”

So, what does Good feel like?

He could not say. Or he did say,

but in Chinese, and one’s Chinese

is not good enough to hear. “After

Great Calamity, after Xinjiang,

I went on the road. People are still

on the road, millions traveling like

desert people. But the desert people

go on roads they know for ten

thousand years. We seek work.

We seek justice.” Or restitution.

Or revenge. Come out even.

You know what he means, millions of homeless

wandering the country, displaced by dams, industrial

zones, the Olympics. “I wandered lost to many

villages until I came here and made up my mind

Stop. Here. My stay-put home.

I took for my own this empty house,

whose family left to work in Industrial Zone.

Many empty houses—you can have

any one you like.” “I want you

to take me to U.S.A.,”

said Moy Moy. “A Chinese farmer

is nothing. A maker of the mouse in an electric brain

factory—nothing.” The nightingale in the cage above

their heads sang along with the talking, and scattered

seeds and spattered water down upon the talkers

(and their food). A bare lightbulb hung next

to a wall, to be lit for emergencies and holidays.

In the dark, Moy Moy told

her failure: She’s never married.

“During the Great Calamity, women acted

married to one husband, and another husband,

and another. I had no one. No one

but this brother waiting for me at the agreed-upon

place.” Lai Lu told

his failure: “I have no children.”

Wittman told his failures: Not

staying with his wife till death us do part.

His son not married. Never getting

a play on Broadway, New York. Not

learning enough Chinese language.

(Marilyn Chin says, “The poet must read

classical Chinese. And hear Say Yup.”)

Midnight, Lai Lu stood, said,

“Ho, la. Good sleep, la.”

He left for some back room. Moy Moy

said, “Follow me.” Wittman followed her

out the front door. White stones

studded the courtyard walls;

a jewel-box up-poured stars into sky.

Followed the queue of black hair gleaming

in the black night, hied through alleys that turned,

and again turned, and again, 3 corners

in, and entered a home through an unlocked

door. “No one lives here.

You may live here.” She parted curtains.

The bed was a shelf, like a sleeper on Amtrak.

She backed into the cupboard, scooted, and sat.

Her pretty bare feet