Chengdu

Beneath a lean-to teashop,
an abacus clicks in dialect.

On bikes overloaded with parcels,
millions of black slippers spin
into markets, parks and hovels.

Add or extract a body
and the scene careens in unity.

Coal dust falls like pepper,
sticks like echoes, ink, and the talc
of butterflies considered long extinct.

Squat in a bamboo grove
sits the cottage of Du Fu,

master poet of the T’ang,
who wrote everywhere I go, I owe
money for wine.