by Michael Pettit

Either it doesn’t help or it isn’t needed.
—Fortune Cookie

Cheers from Mr. Ho, who can’t stand
simplicity, who each year adds
more gaudy New Year’s bunting, more
tinsel and froufrou to his ceiling
and walls and tables.  I take a seat
and he’s on me, hustling his Fogcutters,
his Navy Grog, offering me everything
in the bartender’s fat book.
I have a No thank you for each,
a No please for all the appetizers,
a No for the veil Ho’s Chinese bellydancer
flounces across my neck as I wait for
my sweet and sour pork.  Can’t they see
I am here for simple Chinese fare
and not to cure some melancholy?
Perhaps the drunk across the room
needed his last flaming drink
and it may have helped to tuck
his dollar next to the bellydancer’s
creamy skin, to hear her ululations
and watch her ass shimmy away
in her gauzy pantaloons.  It seems so:
now he’s smiling and Ho is smiling
and she is smiling, looming over me
with her perfume and sweat, hot
for a tip.  But it is my neck
my night to hang my head, and goddamn
if I want this, want anything
but my pork, stale cookie and the check.

—from American Light