Eye Level

Winner of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets, selected by Juan Felipe Herrera

For years now, I’ve been using the wrong palette.

Each year with its itchy blue, as the bruise of solitude reaches its expiration date.

Planes and buses, guesthouse to guesthouse.

I’ve gotten to where I am by dint of my poor eyesight,

my overreactive motion sickness.

9 p.m., Hanoi’s Old Quarter: duck porridge and plum wine.

Voices outside the door come ...