LEH OVER IN KASHMIR: ALCHEMY OF TRAVEL

Like a horror movie just before the girl
gets it, or industrial rumble of refining
molten metals, a distorted drone topped
by reedy shrieks keening from a two-bit
speaker broadcasts the local lamas’ peculiar

neurosis to a town gorged on tchotchkes
and German bakeries, and contests the muezzin’s
cackled barking issued from a higher speaker
(the Allah Turbo 2000) down the same blistered
block. Religion. A dusty rain wipes tans

off tie-dyed tourists and Army Tatas honking
their contemplation of the wheel of life.
Two golden deer, posing as flea-bit drooling
dogs, bark the entire Buddhist scripture
before chasing their tails into the rapid flowing

gutter. You may insert your business
card if you so desire. Check your baggage
at least two hours before all flights
from your job or family. Watch sand spun
into concrete columns behind bamboo scaffolds

and you, wet clay spun by travel into a gleaming
idea of you, full of future, bronzed, absolutely
true—all pockets of stale air vacated, all
prejudices dissolved, horizons expanded and film
exposed—finally ready to return home, the same.