From the series, Japan Poems.

We are all pretending

here.

Hoping not for the best

but for not the worst

to claim

unsettle

or overtake us.

The young girl

in the rented summer kimono

taking a selfie with the misty

Kyoto landscape in the background

the middle-aged man

filling up his empty water bottle

with the sacred water spouting

into the stone fountain

the man skipping the iron ladle

they put out to collect water

in favor of something his own

that he can hold and take with him

his own disposable source of holy

the throngs streaming to and fro

a hydra ravenous to devour

a culture’s prized offerings

while preserving through an inventory of photos

the memories of absorption

the hungry ghosts

never appear in the photos

only us

so we remain fooled

able to go on pretending

where emptiness glares the most

and the worst feared finds evasion through hope.