Rapid Rapid,

A car loses a piece of itself,
clunk, its ghost
rises from beneath the hood.

In the rearview mirror, the highway
is receding too fast
to see what was left there. A learning

opportunity, undoubtedly. Self-
discovery as a shiny new
replacement is lowered into place
with the promise of better
mileage next time. Put bolt

to nut, nut to wrench
and nothing
can't be fixed by a trip
to the store.

House burnt down? Gather some plywood.
The Home Depot man asks us
why. Shop the aisles, we say,
is what we were put here to do,

everything in any size
so we don't have to look too hard,
linger too long
lest we forget that

replaceable matching parts of a whole
are free to choose whatever best unbreaks them,
that matching parts in a replaceable whole
choose whatever breaks them, frees them.

An underground cavern. Walls dangling
good fortune, happiness hand-crafted and packed
for convenience, detail carved in the jangling

copper bells intoning your every wish. Asked
if these were really bamboo, the salesman
says of course (what each thing lacked

miraculously made up for when inquired) can
you see the quality of the copper? But bamboo
you said. Bamboo it is, but copper for the woman

who is paying five times the worth, him too,
the big-nosed with light hair, laughing excitedly
while we simply smile. There is no end to

the rows of manufactured things too quickly
forgotten, old things carelessly forsaken.
Jade for your wrist, sparkling in how many

colours, picked up by the thousands then taken
off, there's green like clouds and blue, pastel
pink, slip it on, off, then it's sitting broken

and the stone no longer smooth. Polished to sell
but not last, and stacked in neglectful piles
where contained in the corner, of well-

worn metal furrows yielding to the trials
of a careful hand, a dirt-encrusted proof in age
which, as fleeting jade fades, simply smiles.

Xi'an

His tag is showing
It smacks of self-consciousness
Don't drool on him, please.