Acrobat

Stuck in a plastic chair
here, in the grey room, grounded.
Why are you here, Minh?
He frowns.  "CES send me.
I been unemploy two year."
What did you do in your country?
"In Viet Nam I was in circus."

Now I see him.  The acrobat.
Muscular arms and chest
narrowing to a slender waist.
Strong legs.
"I used to do tight-rope.
But because communist, I come here."

How many walls did he vault, I wonder,
how many somersaults
before he asked himself:
the tight-rope or the net?

In Cathar country

searchlights on night clouds
play like swallows
on the warm air falling
over the walls of Carcassonne

like rituals of love
like cells dividing
at the bottom of the sea

raindrops on my hat
and the moon's sudden glow

poems that come from nowhere