Another waltz around the concrete steps
crumbling and asking for it
it seems, it drinks the dripping gray from
miserable roofs scorched and damp
with pork grease. Good morning to
the extra millions not caught in the census.
Sawat-dee to the seven-year old rose
vendor. Avoid eye-contact. Bow
down beneath broken mirrors adjacent
to the jasmine doll-house and faded
photographs. One nation,
under king, in street bras and used tennis shoes,
crawls at the bottom of towers high enough
to frighten God, alongside diesel haze and drifts
below enormous cleavage. Old rain
streams from overpasses. We need more lanes
and more merit.

(L.H.L)