Learning Chinese

I carve
the words
out of bamboo—
a language I never knew
in the maple or pine
of Lake Itasca
or the small stones stacked
near the Mississippi in Minnesota.

Painting between the lines
of French and Norwegian
I see the lotus
on the tongue of a man
who is learning Chinese
on the side of the road
less taken in New Hampshire
in the white places
of his bones
drying in the spaces between love
and desire.

I touch my lips to his
trying to taste
the garlic
and the calm
of knowing what tomorrow
will offer to her friend
Truth and Hope.