Red brick sidewalks and white stone buildings, clots of people, some strolling, others sitting; talking to each other; or, like schizophrenics, talking into rectangles of plastic that talk back. Friend, or God?

each breath
               a word
                       unsaid.

On the bus today is an old Chinese woman. Small-boned, high cheekbones, straight black hair with paths of gray drawn back through a green jade clip. She talks to the driver in brittle words.

I awake trying to recall what I'd just dreamed. Why is this reality and that a dream? If I'm cut here, don't I also bleed there? Yet each day I set out trusting my senses are describing the world.