shadows

In Venice-- I was a boy
was a bird
was a ghost
-- wandering the not-streets,
chasing the own
corridors of my mind.

In Los Angeles-- I was a girl
was a peddler
a traveler, the Jew
was a snail
--pressed under myself
my home, everything else
flat against the sidewalk.

In Beijing-- was nothing
a map, a mural
a notion
the doves who weren't there
--flew high,
the water in the canals rose
after them into the smog.

--was everything, there,
in the streams, the trees
filled the hills like light--
illuminated myself.
I was space not surface
--what did my hands do?,
when I was there,
--there was no shadow-play,
in that old place,
I can't name it.