Though the journey
is unspeakably long,
every morning
he seems to arrive here
all of a sudden—
as if he were running
from a brushfire closing
in from behind—
to a place that isn't exactly
a remote cave inside
some auspicious
Tibetan mountain;
where not a smudged and
excellent water lily—but
rather, the mass-
produced print of one,
hung behind the single-
serve coffee maker—
marks the location,
instantiates the routine ceremony
of the cut-
off and the dying.
Outside, there's always
the squeal of brakes,
the hoary moan of commuter
trains arriving
exactly on time—
each one, an ardent
horn playing taps
purely by reflex,
but in some eerily off-
putting minor key.
