She’s the same old
Country girl
When she settles back in
With plentiful rice in mouth;
Dry and yet fulfilling with
Words echoing
In between chopsticks,
A sentence upon,
And within,
Every other mouthful.

She has a way with
Talking while drinking tea
Wherein her hands,
Once left to grains of Mao,
Speak nearly as much as the
Sound of
Slurping mountainsides,
Leaves telling stories
And roots shaking rock –
A little something so very
Ancient, so very practiced
And so much so,
That the burden of “old”
Overwhelms her “new”
And 25-year old back.

She rattles and he’s a way,
Away, a way away,
With tinkered thoughts of
Mirages buried silk screens,
The gentle sweep of
Fingernails upon back,
Shooting stars,
Dodging cars
And failure.
He’s the man on the run,
On the road, wherein –
He never ate,
He only watched her
And he never drank,
He only watched her;

He’d watch
Until the faint dreams of a
Sunrise’d give birth,
The new day’d be promised sleep,
And twilight’d be labeled,
“Escapade” or “escape.”
When came the closed eye,
He be the same ol’ boy,
The “other” she’d never known.