_40. Stepping Onto the Street in a Polluted Chinese City

Outside it is hard to breathe,
and I steady myself on the loom
of a colossal building
that it might give me back
the sweet air,
stillness and the inner wind.
The mist today is coarse,
grainy like my memory of the sun
whose last glimpse I now scarcely recall.
So now I do not walk up hills
in the hot morning,
or step outdoors to gulp
from the sky’s fountain.
The currents above
swirl in discontent.
That’s a futility I know, like
trying to build a poem from words, only,
not memories or love
or the dew I used to but now dare not
touch like a sacrament
with my tongue.