By Laura Merleau
I am looking for a mask.
Tired and hungry and
breathing dust from arid
mountains blowing
across the city cold hot
hungry tired bloody
nose or not just keep
walking. I am looking
for a mask but I find
paper. I am looking
for paper but I find
a mask. I am alone
and monks aged ten or so
serious and smiling
in their wine and saffron
robes cross the street
in front of me and how
will they so young grow
old the way I never
can as long as you
keep bringing me here
in search of a mask,
some paper, and the
way to write to you
about what I found
instead of what you sent
me searching for.
Copyright Merleau 2019
Laura Merleau 's novella Little Fugue was published by Woodley Memorial Press in 1993. She received a doctoral degree in American Literature from the University of Kansas in 2000, but soon had to go on disability due to fibromyalgia. In 2008, she experienced a kundalini awakening which enabled her to return to work and eventually go off disability. By 2015, she found her first full-time job teaching AP English to Chinese students at The Affiliated High School of South China Normal University, and is currently the Head of the English Department there. After a trip to Tibet last summer, she started writing again. Her poetry has appeared in Mixed Fruit, The Apple Valley Review, and Wordgathering.
All work by Laura Merleau
