I.
I, Mott Street Amazon:
fishnets and steel toed boots crossing streets lined with
kitchen equipment
porcelain sets / I trample on
all shy girls with plastic slippers
that smell like 99 cent shower curtains
sour Chanel baked with Canal exhaust
skinny legs and hoop earrings that dangle over fish
I beat down on all cute cartoon animals!
will have no bubble tea or slightly sweet pastries,
refuse pale skin and round surgical eyes
watch me squint
and enjoy my disgust for you
like a fortune cookie you cracked excitedly but stare at confusedly
Take tips from men who
beg to lick my unbound feet: call it Chinese nipple torture
call it whatever
I’ll be the bitter part of Made In China
still falling into the same exotic trap
but armed at least
with spike chains and surgical implements:
my dreadlocks past Grand street create
battlegrounds with each step
Cantonese wisecracks
break mothers’ backs
those men with boxes, in and out of vans
for restaurants that open and close
- and that’s a day:
home to where wives wok and children do homework
make sense of everything
old woman counting her lucky stars
—-
II.
I, Revolution retired
sleeves still rolled up to my elbow
ready to throw stones
at bourgeoisie in hats
not I -
I sent my children to the farmlands
sacrificed my jewelry for Mao
waited over bedsides
where soldiers died in quilts of flowers and tear-soaked letters
my husband in a casket of calligraphy
That was respect.
Now these sour streets I can’t believe
dust over bad language
and bad rice cooked in too much oil.
Raised sons but left with daughters
to a Fujianese dirt camp
not I -
I saw right through the Japanese
and the English
I watched my husband collapse
in a bed of whispers,
I watched my children enter buses
packed senseless,
and slowly, I too fell out of place.
counting the sidewalk cracks
arrogant child with too much makeup
—–
III.
Black stilettos meet Revolutionary sleeves
Neither in their proper landscapes
And so failed to touch
Lucky to be here, says
Mother rolling her sewing machine
fingertips humming of rice fields and industrial kitchens, warrior second
stitching together this town.
