A Bridge Dead in the Water

loacute;ng Whispers through the vegetarian dining hall stop a tardy monk on his golden-robed way. Plastic forks drop. Loacute;ng has reappeared. It is spring at Longhua temple, cradle of the colour yellow. Smoke from etched bronze censers winds with the late winds around the pagoda. On the stone steps beside me, five long toes, long as fingers, on a wooden sandal reach from beneath the belled-bottom of his jeans. I try to make out the nine resemblances; head of a camel, horns of a deer, eyes of a rabbit, etc. Not there, but beneath the edge of his hard jaw I glimpse one bright pearl. Loacute;ng, it's spring and your five toes show an imperial line. Purple shirted street thug shrugging whiskery strands from rabbit eyes. You take one long draw on your last cigarette, virility streaming from your bactrian nose. I wonder at the number of scales armouring your heart-81 yang line the ridge of your left ventricle. 36 yin on the right, allow for beauty. But the rains come and you're gone beneath a tiled gate, leaving just hints of your glistening scales in the bark of a rain-swept pine.