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On the way home, going,

with the hill & mammoth clouds

behind me, rushing to the house

before the rain, those beautiful Pakistani girls,

their faces happy as poppies, I thought, those girls

rushing home as I was rushing home

to beat the first small pieces

of rain falling down

like nickels in departing light. There

was the laughing of the beautiful girls,

shrieking gulls, five or six of them (depending

on whether I count myself), the bright

& shining planets of their dresses

lifting, just so, in the wind. & their black hairs.

& the black sound of horses, horses

hoofing it home, the click

& clop of their patent leather hooves—Still, it touches

my ear, this sound. I touch

my heart. I can’t stop touching

my heart & saying, Today is my birthday,

you see? For the beautiful clamor of planets

dressed as girls who, running home, have heads.

Whose heads swing black night, running home

on the black feet of horses, from the rain.

Now I understand. Today is my birthday.

It is Thursday, my day. My black day.

Prendergast painted the Public Garden;

remembered, even at a little distance,

the city takes on his ravishing tones.

Jots of color resolve: massed parasols

above a glimmering pond, the transit

of almost translucent swans. Brilliant bits

- jewels? slices of sugared fruit? – bloom

into a clutch of skirts on the bridge

above the summer boaters. His city’s essence:

all the hues of chintzes or makeup

or Italian ices, all the sheen artifice

is capable of. Our city’s lavish paintbox.

Come the marrow-hours when he couldn’t sleep,

the boy river-brinked and chorded.

Mud-bedded himself here in the root-mesh; bided.

Sieved our alluvial sounds—

The hotel staff placed a pitcher of water on each table next to a small stack of translucent cups. I couldn’t help but shake my head at that. We would have been better off, I figured, taking Imam Saleem’s suggestion and just staying put at the Temple. The kitchen sisters would have at least given us some fruit punch and sugar cookies. Hell, had we asked nice enough, they might have made us some fried chicken and potato salad. If we were trying to throw money around like Rockefellers, why not put it in the building fund or pay zakat? But I was a one-man HVAC operation, with little more than a truck, some tools, and a house I was just three mortgage payments away from owning outright. As far as those brothers were concerned, I was too ordinary, based on outward appearances, to be an example.

Prancing down the building’s stairs, Hui concentrated again on the boy who had stopped returning her calls. Acknowledging another’s pain obscured one’s own. Hui wasn’t ready yet to accept that. From the window, Meng watched her granddaughter walk up the tree-lined street. The old woman’s longing was like that of a child, featuring prominently in her eyes, which captured that spirit from her youth. It would have been easy for anyone to picture what she had looked like back then, if anyone had been there.

Mamá, you left me.   Papá, you left me.

Abuelos, I left you.   Tías, I left you.

Cousins, I’m here.   Cousins, I left you.

Tías, welcome.   Abuelos, we’ll be back soon.

Mamá, let’s return.   Papá ¿por qué?

Mamá, marry for papers.   Papá, marry for papers.

Tías, abuelos, cousins, be careful.

I won’t marry for papers.   I might marry for papers.

I won’t be back soon.   I can’t vote anywhere,

I will etch visas on toilet paper and throw them from a lighthouse.