You slip soundlessly into the pool
almost invisi\ble, like you're not there.
Shields up,Eyes dart around
hyper-aware.,
A Great Wall stands between you
and letting it
all hang out.
So much pressure exerted
to hold it all in..
Hey, Chinaman, don't you know
you can fly
your freak flag..
I want you to feel
deep in your bones
how safe you are here..
You may
shower as long as you care to
Far Away Man From The East.
Even leave toiletry and towels splayed out
wet in the shower drains.
neglect to take a shower before entering the
public baths. No demerits here in the West
Safe ground surrounds you
Exhale.
and breathe
I see you watching me out of the corner
of your China eye.,.
Waiting for brutal Western man's
jack boots to throttle you
awake.
War has sculpted you.
Wounds and scars not talked about.
There's no threat.here
Still you flinch, preparing .
to be harhsly punished for a
cosmetic crime .
We';ve both been suspects
finger pointed, trussed up,
and hung out to dry,
I urge you to wear something ,
gaudy, flamboyant .
No longer do you have to wear
drab, non-descript,inconspicuous, ,bathing clothes.
Neither one of us are going to be brutalized
pushed with baton and bayonet into a pit
at the killing fields.
You're treading water in the next lane
the club swimming pool. ..
A distant death march is in your eyes.
I want to cry to you,
it's ok to wear a purple and orange speedo.
The war is over,,
Nothing I can do about
looking like Gai Gin dropping
napalm on your elders rice patties.
and poppie fields.
Ancestors, incinerated,
as they're, jerked out of
3000 years of history, land, culture, ceremony.,,
Your women weaving bamboo baskets
and birch wood spoons.
Parents praying to a deaf God
as they stitched and mended clothing. ,
Children collecting barries.
laying traps
gathering firewood.
You are the strong one
The one who survived.
The one who must keep on.
Evolving and adapting..,
leaving behind
shadows, carnage of an unspeakable
genocide.
making your way across the Ocean.
Curious,how you study me as I study you.
I notice your chin muscles are tight and defiant,
Quickly glancing away as I look over
at you..
Your women study me
under their microscopic gaze.
Unlikely to survive a dual extinction.
Do you wonder what makes me tick.
How I survive life's meat grinder...
We've all been surveilled
looked at under heavy scrutiny.
by bloodthirsty hordes.
Your eyes ask burning questions
Am I the giver or the taker..
We're both still hungry in this land of more.
Here, you found a way to cross the unforgiving Ocean
to America with whatever you
could squirrel away.
To master and serve this new landscape
Your exodus, was bold
but disapora doesn't come without cost.
Ripped away
from family, familiar context,, routine, custom, and dialect,
An uneasy feeling of loss you can't quite shake off.
looking in my eyes for answers, reassurance.
Here at the swimming hole..
I give visual cues that I'm a friendly water buffalo,
wading peacefully in the water, bobbing up
and down, cooing softly,
Am I smiling with my my whole face, China man...
Does my body language seem
odd or appear aggressive through your eyes.
I hope not, but I'm ignorant of your customs.
All the other animals in the water hole
eventually relax and let their thoughts take them.
The water healing,,
liquid absolution
Water bugs
rippling in and on the pond..
You invite your sons
and daughters into the hot tub, to lounge around
Fresh faced, first generation American teenagers.
Who have their own reasons to believe the game is rigged..
They don't talk to me either,
I am still Gai Gin a
suspicious stranger
They are attentive
obligatorally respectful.
Nervous laughter lies just under a solemn
stoicism.
The children grin and make funny faces
while the old ones stoic,
remain stone faced, and ghostly silent.
they are watching.
Always watching. waiting for the inevitable coup
the falling of the sky.
the next crash of storm troopers
advancing on blood soaked sand.,
expectant of sudden upheavel to overrun the moment.
maybe a missile, or a tsunami tidal wave.
China man, you stand on the ready.
still betting your odds of survival are against you.
a strained, new world smile.
When your bet doesn't come through,
you double down.
Ever watching and waiting.
Like a thirsty young buck
tentatively drinking waters
at a crocodile's watering hole..
With Hong Kong wonder and Pyongyang suspicion.
My western mind, can't fully imagine ,
what your rich back stories are?
As you stare back at me
wondering the same.
I'm moving like
a Slow Loris languishing in the pool.
I am ever patient
for one lone Chinaman to finish testing me
I say nothing, as he
parades up and down my swimming lane.
and I let him know he has the right of way.
I stay wide right in our lane
while he commandeers the left.side.
I look over at him as if to say.
safe passage.
There's room enough for us both..
We have a mutually, unspoken understanding.
As soon as we make eye contact
sharing this implicit understanding.,
he swims away into another lane.
Allowing me more space to finish swimming my laps.,.
His journey here may have been due to
war, or odd politics.
He could have been a valuable asset
making critical military or business decisions
even saving his homeland from imminent destruction.,
deflecting massive death and disaster...
or maybe this Chinaman's in exiile
a political strong man,
or a retired slave monger,
maybe some mad chemist ,
on interpol's most wanted.list.
A former pirate on the high seas
now a land locked power broker
Maybe he awakens from a fitful sleep,
screaming and shivering
in a cold sweat from the horrors of
the killing fields of
Vietnam, or Cambodia,
A Red Chinese stow away.
Or a defector from
Pyongyang North Korea..
I honor your land and water rights,
and respect you
as you respect me.
God Bless you and best of luck in your
next living chapter in your book of life,
now and in the greater beyond.
I'm rooted to you in this new land .
with an ancient eye.
Joined together in this next
new promised land
to be
fruitful and to multiply.
,
Buddy Bee Anthony]
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