China, China, China

by ferret

The breeze of politics overtook our conversation

Lapping at our ears with its incessancy
Nagging at our eardrums
With the patter of rights and dispensations.

You talked about China and futurity
Your tongue sticking on that word
“Ascendance”
As if it were the name of some lover
You’d forgotten from long ago.

My face must’ve turned
Because it pulled you from your prattle
To ask me pointedly
Bearing your chin like a blade:
“And what do you think?”

I said I saw a Chinese woman
Full-figured and plodding
Across an eight-lane highway
Her breasts jiggling nonchalantly
Her arched high-heeled feet
Plowing on platforms
Over the pavement
Addled with glass and spit
Candy wrappers and snot rags.

Headlight beams
Bore down upon her
Cars, trucks, mopeds, buses
Hounded her in an orgy of metal
Ready to snack upon her flesh
Her breasts and shoes
And teeth and hair and bone.

She was almost hit
A bumper skidding
Just behind her.
Maybe to smack her ass,
Maybe throw her to the ground.

Her expression didn’t change.
She just rested her hand on her chest
To feel the way it was heaving.