Today I met Mr. Zhang at the park. He passed us once then returned a second time and pulled up a seat. He was a non-person to me before he stopped, we got to know each other through words. I told him I’m a writer, a poet, he’d believe anything it seemed. And he said the writers, the poets, the arts are dying back now, we are all in a hurry — and I smiled to myself, it’s alright, there will always be poets. They get to the essence he said, I think you must be a great thinker to be a poet (he said it better).

I wrote down IAMBIC PENTAMETER and the word REITERATE, important words. I wrote my name in capitals, my cell phone number. He said guess my age and I undershot it. He called me on my cell phone sitting right next to him, to test the SIM card from China, his flip-phone — it goes all the way to China and comes back, and we keep the tape rolling, a fragment of me and Mr. Zhang on voicemail I’ll keep. We wave twice and say goodbye and he says I think maybe I will come to your home next, and nods.

Categories: writing

Tags: Beijing, Chinese immigrants, cross-cultural, poem, poetry, prose, Seattle, slice of life