Theseus finds himself detained in strange surroundings.
Seems there’s some problem with his visa.
He sits alone in a drab room
with no idea where they’ve taken Pirithous.
Through filthy windows he can see Shenzhen —
preposterous architecture against a gray rinsed sky;
the haze today thickened by a hangover
from last night’s Tsingtao plied with ‘ganbei.’

Theseus studies water blots that cloud the ceiling
and reads them as rhinos on stampede.
How different the sign on the door
whose Hanzi characters squint inscrutably at him.
The artifice of his wakeful state distorts
these odd mnemonics he mistakes for thought.