Michael Hanson

in the late afternoon sun, a dozen silhouettes stand in the bottom of a canal. their shadows are long against the cracked, red earth. east, in the direction of their shadows, is the city of angkor, capitol of the empire.

From west bank of the canal, squatting with my back to the setting sun, I watch the men.

Cooking fires in the tens of thousands rise against the sun- set. the sky is orange-grey. here, at the western edge, the city’sodor is unmmistakable: charred fish, sugar-smoke, sweet fermen- tations, and the effluviant exodus of the remainders of days and nights of labor and joy.

The spires of Vishnu’s house tower above. the city ripples outward. stone gives way to teak, then to the palm-roofed huts of farmers and fishers. A poem of power and proximity to power, the chaos of creation balanced against order, taming night’s shadows and the heat of noon.

Even in these dry years, angkor is the greatest city in the world. the world doesn’t know itself, yet - no great chain connects the metropolises of tenochitlan and angkor. humanity fumbles in the eternal darkness of its ignorance of itself. in the darkness, it cannot recognize its own touch when one member finds another.

Walking east, back to the city where I was born and where I will die, my thoughts and eyes wander to the churning of the cosmic ocean above, unseen through the glow of cooking fires and the lamps of the evening.

I notice neither cold nor the trees growing where a decade be- fore rice was grown, as I walk to the city. Not tired, and trou- bled, I wander and grow hungry. The smell of the city is un- bearably rich and I hope there is still rice left when I return home from my journey.

In the moonless heart of night, wanderlust unsated, exhausted, I return home. in a single moment of terrible hunger and terrible fear, I realize....

...my family is gone. our home, two stories of teak, lies empty but for silent air. I search everywhere, and find no sign or story of their departure.

Standing on the roof, abruptly cold and very hungry, my gaze carries up to the ocean of milk. every silver drop mirrors thelights of angkor’s earlier brilliance.

It is infinitely far away.

I do not understand and I am too tired to pray. I lay on my back on a reed mat and stare at the heavens.

Sleep envelops me, then dreams. in dreams I drift on a log in a river of milk. I paddle, slowly. milk passes between myspread fingers, soft. It is warm, like a body, like blood.

Drifting on the log, alone, I feel eyes upon me. On the far banks of the river of milk, a constellation of eyes reflect the moonlight above.

The clever, hungry eyes of animals of the forest devour me, first my milk- dipped fingers and toes, then my limbs, then the flesh of my body, my head, my ribs.... finally, my intestines and spine slip into the river, leaving a long trail of pink blood in the water. the log drifts on.

I feel no pain. I feel nothing.

Twilight crowning , a churning roar rises in the distance....