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he will be waiting for you at the airport.”

She listened to the wise old woman teaching her.

But how to instruct anyone the way to make

an American life? How to have a happy

marriage? For a long time in the dark,

dozing, dreaming, thinking, we sat

without speaking, without letting go

of warm hands. The red red green

green appeared again. I told her,

“That’s Japan. We’re over Japan now.

We’ll be landing soon in Narita.”

“Waw! You speak Japanese too.”

She admires me too much. Inside

the horrible confusion of the international

airport, how can a mind from

the village not fall to crazy pieces?

I found a nice American couple making

the connecting flight to New York, and asked

them please to take this Chinese girl

to the right gate. She thanked me. She said

goodbye, see you again. “Joy kin.”

She did not look back. Good.

Gotta go, things to do, people

to meet, places to be.

CITY

I betook

myself to Xi’an. Like everyone,

I’m leaving village for city. But a city

so old and deep in-country, it has a chance

not to be the same global city

as every city. Xi’an means West Peace,

and was the capital during 4 eras, not Sung.

I stood at the bottom of the gray rock wall

of the walled city, looked up its slope,

looked to the curved sides, could not get

a sense of the whole layout. More solid

than Long Wall. A granite bowl banks

the earth around (parts of?) the city. I stood

on top of the wall, walked the boulevard

paved with bricks. I enjoyed spaciousness,

few walkers that day, few bicyclists.

At the ramparts on one side, I looked down

at ponds and moats. On the other side, sky-

scrapers, like a mirage city, much higher

than the walls. Relics of military defense,

walls are no barrier to attack, no

barrier to in-migration, never have been.

Xi’an, like the dusty villages, pushes out of

earth, and earth pulls it down into earth.

Build upward, towers, skyscrapers,

pagodas. Dig out of engulfing earth.

The air is dark. Everyone coughs.

Cover the kids’ faces with gauzy scarves.

It’s not just the cars. It’s the wind

blowing sand into this city at the south-

easternmost edge of the Gobi desert.

The body of sand is shifting over eastward,

and uncovering rock ground. Down in the street,

though dirt gray (this day won’t count

as blue-sky day either), glass

and steel shine through. Cities are full

of mirrors. My whole time in the villages, I

did not see a mirror. I had not looked

at my image. Village people live so close

together—everyone sees everyone every

day—they know how attractive or unattractive

they are. Now the way I look

appears to me, here, there, in windows, on chrome,

in mirrors in markets and bathrooms. I have changed.

I am a dandelion puffball blur. My hair,

scribbles of white lines. My face. Lines

crisscross and zigzag my face.

My eyes. I am looking into eyes

whose color has turned lighter, hazy brown.

Wind and time are blowing me out.

The old women around me are vivid and loud.

Their hair is black. They’re beggars, soliciting

in a group outside the temple, selling

incense and matches, but don’t care whether

you buy or not. They’re out of the house enjoying

ladies’ company. A lone gray woman is

sitting on the curb by the crosswalk.

She’s begging, not selling anything;

begging is against the law. A policeman

and a cadre woman in charge of the street talk

to her for a long time. The cop kneels

to talk to her. She does not reply. I think

he’s trying to convince her to cease begging,

to get up and move on. The cadre

woman, an old woman too, is not

giving her a scolding. They’re treating her nicely,

speaking softly, secretively. They don’t want

to make a scene on the street, don’t want

this conturbation to be happening. Homeless old

beggar women? None such. I

keep watching. They won’t hurt her as long

as the American tourist watches. After quite

a while, I have more interesting sights

to see, and leave. When I come back

to that street corner, she’s gone. Why

is it that old women are China’s refuse,

and men, war