Latchkey Playmate by China Adams
We were orphaned
to your mother’s pork bao buns,
your brothers’ cock fights
& tattered metallic costumes
stuffed loveless in rattan hampers
behind the stalled Pinto.
You were some hybrid
mermaid-disco-lord.
I, a rotten queen choked
with a dingy accordion collar.
You tied yarn to my neck,
a leash for the collar.
I followed behind.
Once we watched a bird,
wing-slit, hobble the chain-link edge
looking for a fine place to die.
China Adams is a poet and studio artist living in Los Angeles, California. Landscape figures prominently in her writing and drawing; her drawings are often decorated with her writing. She teaches art and design in the Roski School at USC.
Art by Andy Smith