Orientalism
BY TORY ADKISSON
Through your navel, the sound
of the ocean opens, a cave’s convex
darkness. Inside, a world
of Hokusai prints, octopuses
sprawled suggestively on the rocks.
Now we are both stars in each other’s
wet dream. Shake the salt
from your hair, flip off the camera.
Whatever comes natural.
I’m fine just fishing with a pair
of rough-cut hands, the delicious
gonads of sea urchins. All the better
for future stars of the Pacific
Theater, no longer encumbered
by war, its garish sound effects.
Blood. Now is a time for romance,
comedy, maybe even a little
catharsis. Or a story set to bamboo
flute about a Chinese man, dressed
as a woman, stabbing himself to ease
his anguish, for loving the sort of white
man who only lusts after travel,
who goes home to Europe promising
to return, when he is really saying
these are the roles we were born to play.
It’s a pure sacrifice, playing them.
