Hong Kong 1987

Hong Kong 1987

Hong Kong neons swing low over the roads

With solid air saturated,

Which must be sucked hard through the nostrils

And processed by the lungs like syrup in a pancake

I am an alien in an alien land.

They grow the alley cats small and fast

Cartier watches are cheap from the footpath

Women ask my boyfriend for a fuck

Right in front of me.

He declines.

The bread is made of lard and flour…that’s not right.

We hop on a junk with an unfriendly boatman

And are mesmerized as we float, as much by the squalid beauty

As by the murderous gazes coming from the locals

And the pungent stink of piles of drying fish hoiked out of the

Rancid waters full or runoff from factories.

Men, cool looking, in suits skip stairs by twos to catch a ferry

Off to business, whilst we the tourists sit exhausted in singlets

And shorts, rendered moronic by the heat

Uncomprehending at

Their ability to be dry and neat and lithe.

My boyfriend was born here

On the Island

He lived at the Hilton. There are photos

Of his mother in a bikini and sunglasses by the

Hilton pool with her young, first child

He is small and plump and white

He had a nanny and a cook and his mother

Sometimes wanted to throw him out of the window

When she got upset with his crying she said

But she didn’t.

She threw mix masters at the ceiling instead, 
He said.