Haiku Written in China

after filling my basket
with fat strips of pork
the salesman gives me a cigarette

my pocket knife
sticky with snow pear juice
is covered with lint

thermos bottles clang together
in the crowd
around the boiled water faucets

the humpbacked girl
follows us
into the apple orchard

trenches circling the apple trees
the November scent
of feces and rotting vegetables

on the flat top of the hill
new wheat

quickly banging the wooden disk
the Chinese chess player
takes a piece

an old woman hobbles by
on little black feet
"look - a crimp-foot granny"

after shitting outside
the little boy has a tail
of dry leaves

flipping the newly minted
one Mao coin
it doesn't ring

layers of knitted stockings
give the thin Chinese girls
big knees

The five flights of stairs
to the Foreign Language floor
are slippery with snot

loads upon loads
in the squat toilet
but no paper

the train worker
mops the corridor
with urine

the dog meat salesman
points at the dead white teeth
I bark

man-made caves
dot the hills

in the dance hall
the tough-looking PLA men
dance with each other

yellow clay paths
zig-zag the vegetable terraces

tonight's dinner
crows from the teacher's balcony