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The Curious People  

Life is a brilliant red in Beijing.
It is communism
It is blood
It is everywhere and too thick to notice

My mundane was unique
so they stole half written postcards 
to see the strange letters
and they leaped into
photos to see what boring scenes 
I found interesting.

60 miles sprawled with tenements
30 million existences of sameness
and me 
who made the comrades curious

I stopped
and l looked
at a nonexistent spot on the sidewalk 
A throng solidified instantly 

Switching glances between me 
and the spotless I stared at
screamed whispers moved
in tiny waves of absurd 
and serious

The disbelievers
gathered
like an anti-Fatima
as I bent to pick up
a closely examined nothing

Without letting on a smile
or looking in a single face
I walked away through a parting
sea of people
carefully holding air 
between my fingers
as if it were an emperor's ring

I became "the man who glances"  
They waved to me 
they followed me  
I was an expected circus
that had come to entertain
the billion. 

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