I Cannot Remember

I cannot fathom, yet why in the 10,000 meters
lining every crevice of my youth, and
now: my eyes bathe in every thought,
every thought like plum blossoms on a golden field next to,
smoke and ashes. 

I began. dreaming, in the kingdom
of head after head in clammy trains that shake my bones
but long after the mucky air, masks before masks, there where nature
is worth nothing. As green, underneath, forbidden pallette, towered
by fury lined in glass, metal and plastic.

In what price: pay with every forgotten penny in my pocket
Fly, through every sidewalk drenched in the chords of sweet, spice, umami
Blink, sorrow adds on creases in familiar faces before time can
stop. In shops not of dollars, spell me in a cart.
Oƒ course I want more.

My younger brother holds foreign words, my ears are foreign, I speak foreign
though the needles of nativeness prick, prick until I drown in
each syllable, imperfectly naive and jump like dogs chasing four tails at the same time
but are shadows, long ago lit. 

700 days, trace my finger along the constellations
through New York, my new branches, but down into my roots swell with
Fading culture,
I am ƒading. 

I cannot fathom, yet why in the 10,000 meters
I cannot remember my home Beijing.