Fast Song

Six thousand miles from rock and roll

while the baby sleeps

on his bamboo mat

on the red painted concrete floor

of our room in this concrete dorm

instead of discussing Marvell

or Oral English Practice

we dance a long slow dance

to an old fast song

because I need

to smell

your hair

Apples and Oranges (Nanjing #2) 

At the market outside the People's Department Store

the apples do not come polished

from automated packer-shipper sheds.

The oranges are not stamped with brand names

for living room display with grapes and plums.

Perhaps, even, you would not call this shop

a department store,

or these two wagons a market,

but the man who pulls his wagons

each morning to this corner

asks me about my baby

and stops my hand from choosing,

then reaches the sweetest apples

or fattest oranges

from a sack he keeps behind

and tells me it's no trouble.

Gone   

Did you ever put a penny on the track

waiting for the four o'clock?

Did you walk home extra slow

tie     to     tie     to     tie     or

              tight-

              walk

              down

              the

              steel

until you heard it coming

and stop

and kneel

and put that penny on

then set close back

by the ragged yellow bushes

staring

proud

to stay so near

hoping it won't shimmy off

when the pounding gets

so close

it's hard to look

at the place

where the first wheel

hits.

One time I put a nickel on the rail.

Rick Leeds put on a dime.

That dime came out big as a quarter

and the face was still half there

and half a shadow

staring up from the steel.

But my nickel was gone.

Not on the rail,

not on a tie,

not down between the coal grey stones,