From the sampan
I see orange and gray
monkeys on a pebbled beach
contemplating us
while up on a crag
men flanked
by sparse trees
gather around
the steam from
a slaughtered pig.
They are submerged
now in the flooded
valley of our years
of marriage but
still I see the monkey
and the pig as formed
by that place
as opposed to bodies
composed in a painting
like we were that first year
of marriage. Sometimes
in the night in the bathroom
I stood and sensed everything was thin,
the walls, the mirror, fine
as a needle point drawing
holding us together and I prayed
to be changed by it.