CHINATOWN
The nickelodeon was spent, the screen behind the
glass was gone, and fifteen chivalrous soldiers led
the way to both time and reason. Not knowing what
a capstan was, I never ventured forth to see. The
flowering Chinese woman at the old Mayflower Cafe,
well, she was a different story : Tong War maiden,
Nationalist Party lackey, fevered yellow whore - I'd
heard her called many things like that in my day.
At the end of Mott, or one of those crazy streets,
they had a chicken in a booth. For a quarter in the
slot, that chicken somehow would dance and peck,
and out would tumble some sort of crummy prize.
I always wondered how long the chicken lasted and
how many they had to replace. It all seemed
so callous and crude.
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That's the way it is and was - not much changes
in the realm of the sorry and sad. I think of a hundred
things at once, and realize they're mostly all sad.
Especially here, in Chinatown - or at least some
nutty old Chinatown of the mind : ducks, glazed,
dead, and roasted, hanging on hooks from their necks
in the restaurant windows; piles of hacked, webbed feet
for sale; stupefied, fat fish, rolling low in a tankful of
bad water; diners selecting their things to eat while turtles
play on their death-watch in small, plastic tanks. I have to
move on, giving thanks, I guess, for the smallest of things:
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the light shining off that puddle, glinting its way
back to me; the little girl, shyly blowing bubbles off
a plastic stick, while her brother plays, nearby, in the
open tenement doorway and along the stoop, rolling
small toy cars along the three bottom steps.
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