Who will sail down
these laugh line Ganges rivers?
you should hope someone will.

turn to me and whisper,
declare, utter
that in the sinosphere,
they hire crying women

lest we pass, sail, transcend
within the silence we were
ushered onto this plateau with.

lest our Deity mistake the two.

scratch. stratch scratch scratch
on the back of your throat.

Two Hundred and Two Days ago
this would have been
your Angela’s Ashes spiral
into veiled, Catholic interment.

but you’re a heathen
and no criers will have been hired
no doters at your stone
come Dias de Los Muertos
as mother to grandmother,
as peasant to ****** Spanish friar.

but you have a plan.
you,
will be ground into a fine dust
and pressed into a record.

eight minutes on both sides

be not afraid,
be not a swan song.