Unfolding

into sky,

time dissolving

until touch of leper hands,

taste of embalming salt

there was the ruined face of the tall lady, blowing blood, billions of fake flowers

the amulet round the neck, his prickly skin rash, the string of jasmine above the mirror

400 butterlamps flicker the deer man’s hoofed-legs

suddenly the cuckoo

chatral rinpoche’s coconut

the rigor mortis cat in the gutter

the barefoot street boys huffing, crazed wobbling on the sidewalk

the small goats on the roof

they spooned mindrup into our hands

the truckloads of maoists yell, wave flags

children play in the street

finally, sun

the barebreasted woman on the roof of her house—dark pendulous breasts

how flora goes to the south of france in the summer and tans, how she wants to know if marike eats lots of strudel (marike says no, that’s german, not dutch)

the small monks are unaffected, saturday soccor outfits donned

she said it would go, the way a shoe slowly wears

still, it stuck like a sock on a wet foot

desire

could you know there’s no heartbone here?

but there were bodhisattvas

among us, cows fat on garbage, feces everywhere

amongst girls in orange-sherbert colored clothes, burning bandh tires,

amongst the insects, people, cars, horns bursting—the cacophony of dogs in the night

there, like a lump of sugar dissolves into tea

*Already posted this on my other blog, but I want to get all my new poems in one place...