Emptiness
I know you are here, but nowhere I see. The Zen master calls us upstairs one by one to his chamber for our interviews. No you on the stairs. My head, a tangle of bother about the woman on the zafu across from me who shifts every ten minutes. Chair to cushion, cushion to chair. Is that allowed? Every forty minutes we circle the cushions. Is it not enough? Why do I care? Legs asleep, knee aching, I think who are these people I am not-talking with? People I meet and not-meet. Then I catch myself and label the thought thinking. I slept on the floor near the deck door, or not-slept, with all the bumbling to the bathroom in the middle of the night. The hallway light off, then on, then off again. The whole night I waited for nothing to show up. Nothing ever did.