Chao Phraya

The night river looked oily and golden.

The sun never sets on capitalism, she said, 
as we were rowed past The Temple of Dawn and the Golden Buddha, all the way up to the riverside Hilton and back on the back muscles of 

600 baht each.

It's immoral to haggle lots with the have-nots, she said,
and I bit back 18 years. Identity is logarithmic with age, so surely the last 7 years makes 600 baht only 20 dollars, not 1000 rupees. 

From the banks of the river Chao Phraya we heard Buddhist chanting.

I love being lost, she said later that night,
high on Euro trance, crammed in with 1000 other Thai Chinese desi white yuppies 

seeking refuge from sweat (affluence, that great equalizer); 

4000 limbs paying 200 baht each in tax to 

move 

in 

lockstep 

to one man's button-pressing.

Metaphor! I exclaimed. Our moves are boxed in,
Delineated by the beat. Oh shush, she said, dancing,
Miserable money musing is
Always best boxed inside idle conversation.