Zhōngguó China

What was Zhōngguó is now a place of dreams I still smell the scent of the hyacinth hear the eunuchs murmur when the envoy asks for wine but I get lost among the thousand islands the waterways choked with lilies the boat is caught the way is gone. But I have the photos the torn pages and notes found in the pockets of old clothes about old friends, the village rivers, the mountains and rivers the protection of trees where I waited in the rain but where is it now? When I ask the porters they murmur stories my father told me and whistle old radio songs their hands and fingers form words I never understand they look through my maps and books and laugh you’ll never find it, storms, shipwrecks bleached by the sea no time there, they say, nothing there for you. When the boat arrives I have no ticket nor the money to buy one they ask for proof of who I am and where I’m from then push and shove me into the crowd they’re all the same with their little hands and narrow eyes asking me where I go, where I go? When I turn back to the boat it’s gone so funny they say. Every day the boat comes and goes every day I wait on the wharf and watch it sail away.