Anna May Wong Stars as Cyborg #86

The future is as sterile as a robot’s loincloth.

I drown my hands in sanitizer until they pucker.

Where this soapbox tree germinates, I collect

my germs and make a fountain of them.

Because yellow is yarrow and soot, and the future,

I’ve learned, is no suture. Because where I’m from,

these kisses are infections. Because dirt’s

ammunition against discipline, the blood fills

my clean mouth with dismay. Am I surprised—

Hollywood still assumes we are all the bastard

children of the same evil dictator? That phosgene

and mustard will rack our titanium Maoist husks

until some white man with slanty eyes rescues us

from our mealy, pliant selves? Am I to wear Dior,

wrap my mouth in bloody tulle, before kneeling,

bending to kiss a mouth dirtied by Pantone 136?

No fucking thanks. Because where I’m from,

these kisses are infractions. Darlings, let’s rewrite

the script. Let’s hijack the narrative, steer

the story ourselves. There’d be a heist, a battle.

Audre Lorde would write the script. My leading

man would be Bruce. We’d earn our happy ending.

Instead, they give me 1981. 2012. Quantum quasars,

new dystopia—plutonium wars. We’re not in Polanski’s

Chinatown anymore. Yet we still have the same bowl

haircuts. Bangs, big bang, a city of fetid promise, new

minor galaxy where we cannot touch. Instead our skin

is rust and metal. It gratifies the technophile in all of us.