Buddha of Rumtek

A sincere craftman's

Over rehearsed work,

Innocence worth stone

Opens the petals

Of a clay cliché.

Buddha of Rumtek,

I bow, when the incense

Of wood-slippered monks

In unironed skin, burst

Camphor in my eyes.

Like the edge of a

Black sun, briefly breached

By a burning lama

Desolately unstrung

From a tent in New Delhi.

It sears and chills

Wooden spines of mannequins in

In the Barbie museum,

Quicker than winter

Relieves winter in Tibet.