There are rivers of karma pushing me forward
each current the arms of my mothers and fathers moving me along
But sometimes I struggle, sometimes I fight
and forget the stream
I forget myself, why I swim
and the hungry undertow always ready
to drag me below
Sometimes I just open my arms and sink
letting things become dreams
because I am tired and want no more
But the river isn’t done with me
It drains my body like a taut wineskin
and adds my hunger to its own.

Isn’t sitting here
Isn’t doing these things
Thinking or forgetting them
Finishing or failing
It’s just temporary;
Something to hold me over
Until there’s work to be done.

There is a sacred world
(Not here, very far away)
Where I used to go when I was young
Like a camping trip in the summer
When the air is wet with insects
Trees breathe gold sap
Platinum pours through the forest canopy
And the air is made of birdsong
At night, the full moon strolls across the sky,
Hiding her stars like secrets.

I wake up again everyday
A sliver of white light coming through the sheets we hang to keep it out
Eyes bathed in sleep, pillow in spit
Beside me, she breathes, alternating snarls and purrs
Her body and mine like feuding sister-nations
Our bed, a sea after storm
As the birds sing our truce
The alarm is a newswoman’s voice silenced with a finger
We snuggle tighter, pull the covers closer,
Our bodies parallel sine waves
Crashing onto shore
Just a few minutes more and we’ll be there.

Wilshire Boulevard is a big, bustling avenue just swarming with all kinds of folks. By far, it’s the most New York of all the thoroughfares in the City of Angels, bounded on both sides by towering skyscrapers, tiny pedestrians, and flashing cars. Like any major international city, there are a kaleidoscope of faces on the street. Different colors, different tribes, different histories converging here among the fruit stands and cell phone stores. It’s strange how familiar a face from the other side of the world can become, how like someone you remember, someone perhaps loved. I wonder, in this city of strangers, thousands of miles from my home, does anyone recognize me?