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"Door God: Zhong Kui, the Demon Queller, Expels Evil and Attracts a Bat of Happiness," in the collection of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Where we all live, in the cool, in
the dark, together, say the bats.

Where we molt and strut, peck
at June bugs, say the peacocks.

Oh, Peter. Another August has
passed, another poem of mine’s
written that you won’t read, and
I think about the house you built,
those birdhouse gourds trellised,
the peacocks in your yard and in
that James Merrill poem I’d read
to you, your dream of rocks that
smelled like peaches, how I just
couldn’t recall what they meant
in Chinese art the week you died.

Home. Where we think of our
friends, where love lives, say I.