Red dust has fallen for the night
    and I should sleep too, but I slip

    downstairs, hop across the marble
    grade where the chauffeurs hang out,

    and suddenly in a city with
    only a few eating places

    open, the avenue of fans
    is an empire of locust trees

    where the moon with its cement face
    glares on the few creatures moving

    below: a tank truck watering
    the tar, a lone sweeper, and me.

    My feet have swollen from dread
    disease or from roaming the Long Wall

    but I couldn’t care less. I leap-
    frog over a big steel trash can.

    No one spots me—am almost lost
    in the great underground metro

    where Beijing is to hide out when
    the million Russian troops across

    the border let the rockets fly.
    I fly like a fire in a bamboo

    forest, all alone in empty
    China. How lucky I am here

    with all these ancient alleys of jade
    where three emperors came from

    their village to find the apples
    of silk. I knock quietly at

    a thin door in a dark patio,
    walk in happy and disappear.