chinatown tonight’s gonna set something on fire, and for once I pray it’s not me. i take my shoes off in the temple and pray it’s not me. this is how we bring in the lunar new year, through the back door. wet nose blackened by a gong-sounded midnight twitching at the smell of salivating switchblades, and mother-wary saying “get inside, get inside.“ Chinese violins and cement beneath our aegean bones weighing the odds between cracking open and just telling the truth. and do you know the difference? are you seeing this shit? the dragons are dancing above us, setting fire to our parking tickets. can you smell the earthly worries and the city steamed cha siu bao? all burning our tongues. the slow motion meteor showers from beneath your bangs. the pine trees bend for you in ways you’d never ask them to, and yet, and yet. i saw a spirit walking last night, bandaging stray dogs. she chewed her bubble gum like it was 2004, scratched them when the fleas bit because they needed not because they asked. we wait for our change at the dim sum, and I pull you away from the after dark poker table because you’re young like clay, and i don’t want you getting any ideas about what it means to be a girl in red with slang on your hips and chinese firecrackers at your ankles. always having to run away from your own footsteps. so i pull you away and we watch the lobster tank with your eyes wide like lily pads under a blue moon. the christian saints won’t ever touch me like that. we’re cheap. we save the bacon grease. our altar is made of plastic. buddha and guan yin cry rice water while mom curses her burning shrimp, year of the chicken? are you fucking kidding me? it will run in circles even after you cut off its head. here is how we pay for the crimes dug under snake burrows. a buried hatchet marked in rabbit bones better suited for witches rites. you always need something from the dead, whether you are digging them up, or aching up a storm on their doorstep. here is how we pay for the Chinese takeout: all American in the wild, taking back what is not mine behind a gun cocked jaw, moony agitation pressed with dog panting palms into virgin wrists, and family jewels. the lazy Susan freckled with pot. and no eye contact, because I am shy. i shut the door and say thank you, have a nice day! but we move like we have no homes, the last descendants of bruised cicadas and lost lotus flowers, searching for family in that black lake asphyxiating on sewer sludge some people call massachusetts. this is how we bring in the lunar new year. shy eyes at the sky, like you are peaking for a sign.
