Gong sounds, curtain lowers.
Makeshift stage, lights
strung from a paulownia.
The viewers have left
an empty playing field.

Faces stained with powder, we drink,
jammed into the wine shop
by the school.
Suffocating, exhausted,
lamentable life.

The cymbal in the lead
we start for the market place,
boys shouting, clinging to us
while young girls cling, giggling,
by the wall of an oil dealer's shop.

The full moon shines as one fellow
bellows like a bandit, another
sneers like Sorim the outlaw.
But what use is this commotion,
kicking the heels, crushed
into a hole in the mountains?

Better left to women, this farming
that won't pay
even for the fertilizer.

Past the cow dealer's, turning
by the slaughterhouse
comes the spell, and I
lift one foot and blow the brass horn,
shaking my head, twisting my shoulders.