Downturn

I’ll remember this as the summer of rain—which I mean both literally and as a metaphor.

Apologies for the lack of poems recently. Our bar, featured in this poem (from last Christmas) and this podcast from a couple months ago, changed locations at the start of this month, and the weeks before and after the move have been hectic, to say the least. If you’re in Beijing, swing by the new place—we’re just south of Beixinqiao, sharing the location with a coffee shop called Self.

One of our customers in the opening week was a veteran F&B consultant, a foreigner who’s been in China longer than is (some of us will feel) beseeming to say out loud. We lamented the business environment here, particularly for cafes and bars, since the recovery post-COVID has remained sluggish, now nearly two years removed from the end of the country’s zero-COVID policy. “There haven’t been any success stories,” he said, ruefully. The hyperbole, I can confirm, is based on reality. As he was leaving, I asked him to keep me posted if he finds any successes.

Downturn

I’ll remember this as the summer of rain, of
raining at odd times, for long times, at wrong
times (or the right time, for those in pajamas
on the dry side of a window), rain washing
away plans and flooding headspaces, causing
memories to mold, reminding us of bygone
dreams where rains carried flavor, plum sour,
and shape, puffs of dust from a bag of flour,
and sound, splatter off the trellis, hymnals
in the parks — baptism, plenishment, life,
always leaking in.                    These days,
                        people hold against the deluge,
downturn, bad luck, hoping to dump excess
while sweeping water, breathe a bit lighter.
Wouldn’t it be nice, after the battering, if
we rose clean and unburdened, feeling sun-
light on our shoulders, slick stones between
the toes? We’d touch our way across the river,
as the old saying goes, confident in the direction
even after we’ve sunk waist-deep into the mud,
wading, just dogging it, reminding ourselves
of all the worse we’ve weathered.