Every year through the mist and Mao-tai

the men rasp in hooded sinister tongues.

The lazy Susan slows, a reprimand.

Eyes lingering, quiet breaths still in lungs.

I was there, he echoes into his glass,

I tasted the terror. I felt the screams.

Outside: the rickshaws ba-dum across the

cobblestone; with spite, baozi slowly steam.

Outside: a child shrieks, and they cease breath,

because thirty years is still too soon. Less

men than students, they know the choking

of a tie, protests stifled. Confucius

said, Let your thoughts be unswerving. And they

ask, are we not men? Are we undeserving?