made in asia
a girl is born out of wedlock
clothes peeled at the sternum like
ginkgo bearing ripe flesh
belly folded into a frown that’s packed
up duct taped and shipped away
or cleaved right left right with a scalpel
because asian girls are easy
to pluck at and let drift
down scorching rivers all naked backs
while the bombs scorch
eyes fixated on downy breasts
instead of the nakashima’s boiling
stew of mangled prayer beads
yi hai zhengce
from sex objects to the bottom of
pots burnt calcified with the remains
of rice too thin to scoop out
filtering the town’s grains
the big can stay for the schools
the rest muddying water
to flee west perish empty and motherless
in foreign slums or under stone
it’s always ‘was’ and not ‘here’
comfort women wartime barbies
heaps raped and robbed
always ‘them’ and not ‘we’
a little north is peripheral noise
because we don’t speak of
politics economy peace war
life death
we all came from a wandering
animal traveler ravishing
icy land same skeleton and mind
with the tendency to strip and steal
take what we’re hungry for
and not what we deserve
