I’m not going to Wash.DC, not me
Nope, not on your life, no way —
I’d rather stay home and wait
For news
Of demise
Or some other terminal celebration
I’ll just stay home
Immaculately concieved
Tathagata’s birthday
Departure of duplicity
Everyday mysticism
I'll read what is at hand
for instance, The Paris Review
"Camouflage", by Adania Shibli
translated from the Arabic
by Max Weiss. We wear disguises
It is during the pauses
between reading numbers
for the auditor at her desk
I open the tidy issue, Winter 2025
because it sits on cardboard box
next to chair, non-assiduously like
a lethargic cat you stroke because there
it gets dark early as days still shorten
the cold grips walls of old house
deer look to bed down on old leaves
dog on bed makes snoring sounds
the kufiyya on dashboard, then hiding
it from checkpoint soldiers, then waving
it at young boys throwing stones at car
his uncamouflaged head in a dangerous land
the buddhists in Augusta cancel
zoom practice this morning
I logged on three times
figured they’d thrown me out
the way buddhists do when mad,
gave me wrong link, frowned on me
turns out there was illness, said email
after I watched myself and cat
in front room chair by large window
I like buddhists
they stay well within themselves
even when in public, no soliciting
in fact, they’re hard to pick out
in a crowd, unless one is playing
shakuhachi on sidewalk behind coin cup