History is the heavy. The Azure Dragon
lives in a world woven by ration and romantics.
It’s easiest to capture things that don’t move.
Large bronze vats, for example.

Weeds twist the blue-tiled roof
out of proportion, lead petals drop
chips on the golden paper sails.

My little rose-cherry-rusty lotus bud
looked counter-evolutionary in her
velvet uniform and silver boots.

Xinjiang restaurateurs, Henan recyclers,
Anhui maids and Hebei builders, shepherded
by an invisible hand, like a swarm of swallows
or the melancholic object of her disappearing.

In those days there was no electricity,
the attendants carried lanterns of scarlet gaze.
Now the city’s a radio and the Azure Dragon
is broadcasting: “Bite the Wax Tadpole,
The World’s Most Stimulating Bland.”