Do you know that street?
You know, next to those government buildings, red and grey,
Whose blind grimy windows hunched towards that
community park.
The state fenced the market and bundled the hawkers off
to some glitzy mall.
No one will hear them again, full-throated in the open
air,
Nagging, tugging, beseeching, swearing, cursing,
With their thousand tongues
Spiced with the seasons of throngs flooding in from the
Square
A billion feathers
There, out there.
Years later I wonder, did you take my steps down that street?
Brush against the cypress, linden, and poplar rows
Where my fingers ran along its eastern wall?
Did you shut your ears against the rioting colors of its
tents,
Raise your smile at the rain falling between its roofs,
as I had done?
Did your eyes catch its brocaded silks, dance along its smelt
daggers,
Glaze over its porcelain?
Did your tongue taste my memory?
Did we pass each other on this street?
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