Several light-years away from Kansas,
I sit at the Cross Roads Café.
One thousand faces
Reflecting two thousand races
Create an ever-changing
human kaleidoscope passing my table.

In the moist equatorial air, the smell of dim sum
Mingles with the deep fat odors of KFC and
McDonalds, the acrid whiff of a neighboring latte.
Behind all a thread, the merest buttery-foul hint
of last night’s durian fruit feast.

Business suits, backpacks, saris and sarongs,
Delicate, dark-eyed Asian girls,
Bound by invisible ties to the past,
Lurch toward the future on impossible shoes
While cell phones chiming a hundred English dialects
Chase the wealth of the west.

This shopping-center-hub of the world
Buzzes with giant-screen offerings –
Bulges with salves for unknown desires,
Bargains with temptation and greed,
Luring longings into full-blown lust.

And, yet, on the morning street, an old man
With a wrinkled, nut-brown face
Sweeps leaves with a handmade broom,
A design ancient and true,
And patiently smiles as he
Waits for the click of this stranger’s camera.

“Oh, Singapore,” I wonder,
“Who are you?”
And the echo of my question
Bounces off the
stone canyons of commerce
Taunting back

“Who are you?”