Sometimes
we speed beyond our listening face
to
friends, to poems, to Katmandu cafes
that
disappear when we must speak again.
At
night we trek beyond our sheets through skin,
beyond
our skin through dreams, then wake to face
a
Monday morning flight that we will speak
of
when we meet in spring. Till then we live
our
lives: we look up and it's Thursday night
again,
again we leave for Katmandu,
return
before we're missed, and if we're not,
return.
And then it's Thursday night again.
One
day we really are in Katmandu
with
friends, beguiled like the old Chinese —
so
butterfly or man we never left.