LITTLE SONG

I am sitting in the grass     I hear a microwave from the house     Someone setting the time

Then changing their mind     Little song of beeps     The bees come to visit the hydrangeas

They’re a loopy lopsided equation     that actually works out     that is the foundation

of the universe     The bees decide to visit me     I try to stay still so they can visit properly

& am returned to my body    the squishy cantaloupe depths   the memory of when I was a kid

the days of excitement over the phrase “centrifugal force”    I think it was my #1 phrase

for a week     I started telling people that was where babies came from     My father the scholar

shook his head    & explained capital N- Nature    yin & yang    You must have opposites he said

For years I thought gay people didn’t exist in China      But then I went to a nightclub

in Shanghai   small    & literally underground   but packed   with gorgeous men   Chinese men

a winding techno garden of them   Only women my straight friend   & the hardworking old lady

at coat check     I danced till I got sweaty     then too sweaty     In the rest area a man passed by

& pinched my nipple     through my now see-through shirt      I saw how China could be

& Nature could     & me     singing in the grass     little songs about gravity