—after “American Pie,” sung by Leslie Cheung, a Cantopop star who died jumping off the 24th floor of the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong
boys always
haunting the gas
stationed at
the kum & go
come around yelling
happy july, all
these lives you haven’t filled
in all these teeth
a faith so deep you can
die in it, like a boy so
high up he thought the
swimming pool was full
and god willing, he
dived in it. in a
preemptive strike, patriotic, partirons
and party on! miss 中国
in 中西部,
i dismiss
their existence, a flotilla
with more in common
with a root beer vanilla
concoction than the
spanish armada, though
that too was a whipped
cream loss. dq stands
for disqualification—three
strikes & the cup is half
mosh pit half military
campaign—god is in the
good fizz—& the bottom
(beyond the caffeine &
fresh sugarcane) is concrete.