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. 

Of 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 swelled with

Fading culture,

I am fading.

I cannot fathom, yet why in the 10,000 meters

I cannot remember my home Beijing.