Invisible Globe

Hiking up a trail in the snow, I spot
a rusting orange body of a car;

in midwinter, the sun’s a mirage
of July—a woman begins Taiji

movements and rotates an invisible
globe; a sky-blue morning glory

unfolds on a fence; though
the movements appear to be stretches,

they contain the tips of deflections
and strikes; behind a fence, neighbors

drink beer, grill chicken, laugh—
as snowflakes drop, I guess at

their shapes: twelve-branched,
stellar dendrite, triangular, capped

column—under a ceiling fan,
I recall our hours in a curtained

room—and as I sidestep down,
a capped column dissolves on my face.

Copyright © 2018 Arthur Sze. This poem originally appeared in Tin House, Winter 2018. Used with permission of the authors.