A girl pedals.
A boy with the dream of her shirt in his eye
rides the metal carrier behind,
pressing her feet down with his.

An individualist stays within call.

My shoe cushions a small Chinese forehead
pressing down her eyes
for money.
Another kneels her black passin
into the sand
fingering a tin;
shells she has
collected to sell.
Her child rubs dirt
into the bright stripes of his shirt.

Bird song bird
thing-word-thing
sand-me-sea.
One between two
so that nothing’s seen
without involving all the rest;
she, pressing eyelids,
he, with prosperous vest,
leading all the world in
as their relatives.

This remembered and puzzled in sālā-shade,
where I had come
to meet and be alone with my friends,
one between two
(involving infinity) –
when the sun burst into rubbery fire
through the smoked glass of waving branches
at the wind-open western side,
negating aloneness
(or any other kind of activity),
taking the form out of things
and giving glorious light,
swelling the colours on the bananas
until they stained the plate
(destroying a world of physics
with one splash).

.

(from Bamboo Leaves – Poetry in Thailand)