Chinatown


She let someone in and someone capped her.
One of the detectives is a woman
Who won't let the guys indulge
Their sexist, nonchalant assumptions.

The detectives drink coffee-typically
One sugar, one half-and-half.
Tastes like one-way love, tastes like no clues,
Tastes like Monday, tastes like black fog.

"Postmodernism is the opiate of the self-conscious."
The cops could grasp that graffito because they live
In the old century, the land of brusque
Honesty and inward complicity. They sort

Out perps the way Darwin and the bishops did
But hit the same walls. They can't miss the sprawl
Of sprayed letters: NO-GOD RULES, EAST SIDE'S GOT BALLS.
Dubious purpose keeps offing witnesses.

In Chinatown a chieftain downs a cocktail
Of powdered roots and vodka. Women are a mistake
He cultivates. Vanity is smooth as his long hair
But his temper is a wandering trigger.

"Did she deserve to die?" The woman detective
Is yelling. The guys look down at their shoes.
Explanations are the handcuffs on rage,
But blood is louder-blood laughs at the pain.