Four standing behind the six
sitting,
ten Chinese men
posing with Chinese beer -

the photo, unfortunately,
has become fragrantly bleached
and has washed-out highlights, a
poor exposure to begin -

posing for two-thousand years and daily
foot-bound women came
to shave the cardboard men.

An oriental muse infuses
this abject wit in me, I
preoccupied, fortunately,
by fortune -

the clever insight is manufactured mystically
by lurid destiny -

                a fish in the East China Sea
                I was previously a brewmaster
                and never once believed in reincarnation
                sweet Buddha I
                am cold-blooded -

clever destiny is transparent
like an arranged photograph
is transparently fitted
to be a concrete cocoon
and lurid insight is a breakdown of cells
like the yellowing ten
in the chemically structured emulsion.

I am the thief
who snapped these ten
and reinstated them;
I sew with these words
a beer-mat.