My name is Erhan

I am a Camera.
I am a cool cat in the sun.
I am the cooling love, love shove in.
I am red ink inside dust unloading cans of paint for a project to to abandoned.

Wearing a burgundy shawl found in Lhasa, before the Chinese invaded with their patriotic re-education pogroms, programs and propaganda machines.

I smell like clean laundry’s spring dance.

I am your masseuse. I have been here since 1555. My name is Erhan. I work in a large domed room where, during daylight, rays of sun shaft down at precarious precious angles, slanting along humid walls, glancing off tiled mosaics where blue and green and yellow tiles sing.

At night, stars sing with their light.

The dome has a large central eight-star perfect symmetrical hat. It is surrounded by sixteen more stars in a geometric pattern. And this is where I live. I work here. I raised my family here. I will die here. This was, is and will be my fate.

In the afternoon after noon prayers the men return to the tea house.

Under the muted tones of male stories, gossip and myth, small silver spoons-dance inside glass.

I live in a world of water above ground where the tea and conversations meet in companionship and community.

Someone else is writing this. It is a Friday and he is drinking thick black coffee with a silver glass of water. It is wonderful to be surrounded by strange friendly strangers and people. Long oral music tongues - footsteps, the turning of newspapers - slurping tea and his eyes are heavy, lids of fingers down.

Peace.