Connections

 

Foxconn puts up nets
Around the rim of the factory roof

So workers don't
jump to their deaths

In New York City
Speakers of languages

Sparking and fading
On apartment stairwells

Wonder about the verses
Of 100 poets every 100 years

For dozens of centuries
Vanishing like vapor

Risen up from the steam grates
Or the windows of food carts

Cadences caught in Central Park trees
Metabolizing in North Atlantic clouds

Rhymes rebounding
Off pavements in Chinatown

Off synagogue stones in Alphabet City
Poet Xu Lizhi recalls he looks like

His grandfather "beanpole"
As he "clothes hanger" falls asleep

Standing up again
On the line in Shenzhen

Verses scribbled into notebooks
On timed breaks

Will he find the time

To say what

Must be said

(paintings by Christine Ferrera)