I start to listen.
But he’s doing the I Ching,
and the sixty-four
hexagrams. For a moment
I see the great
mandala like a perimeter, out
past Stone Mountain,
but never knowing which to take.
So you circle.
One goes to the theater, one to a
lake where you
catch bass with pink worms.
These are early on.
Later, it’s like you’re out in
the middle
of nowhere, gas stations with
greasy
restrooms, some with no entrance
back on.
(You see the people who’ve taken
these
leaning on the rails of
overpasses.)
There are trucks, of course, like
gray whales, and when it rains
you’re driving under water,
looking
for the green signs to the top,
holding
your breath. When you hear
the
thumping beneath you like a slung
rod,
turn the radio up and keep going.
But that’s as far as we take it.
He says,
"Write a poem." I say, "You
too,"
and then we walk out into the
office, where
we hear one secretary say
to another, "What goes around,
comes around."
Is this coincidence? I ask you.
