Home at Last

I’ve mounted Mutianyu

and scaled the Great Wall

I’ve skipped rocks on the

breakers of the Bohai Sea

I’ve stood under the gables

of old palaces to escape the

fall of rain

yet still

nothing can compare to a stroll

down Minnehaha Avenue by

the weary flicker of old street

lamps / nothing can compare to

the soft ballads of cool crickets

chirping in the unmown grass

the low trickle of the neighbor’s

sprinkler and the mellow rise

and fall of a girl’s quiet laughter

from the trampoline in back

— just a mini haha if you will

a mini haha spilling out over glowing heads

as they levitate in their clouds of cigarette

smoke — just a few bubbles

of laughter in an aquarium of sin

and then

hush

hear it?

the faint but present

trembling

of police sirens