Ensor

There, garland dandelions round that idol

with a corn husk face &  beard

patched with rat stubble from a barber’s dust pan,

parade float driven by a carriage pulled by a pig.

Two sticks knotted together,

cake frost on that crude wood to make it gilt.

There, spider cranks &  iron gyres,

blueberry stain glass sprout

like wings from coal burn cars,

a trumpet toots the sorrow of another boy dead,

there he is, limp on a gurney wrapped in gingham scrap,

there, he’s blast.

There, roofless houses,

sarong utopias balloon, balloon toward the sky,

while women beat, beat their skulls.

I trail behind, mop in hand,

sloshing scum water over memorials.

There he stares at my tic-torn cankered face,

&  begs for alms, his face horse rudder red.

A son, he huffs, it is a son I want.

Cathy Park Hong is the author of two books of poetry, including Dance Dance Revolution (W.W. Norton, 2007), which received the Barnard New Women Poets Prize. .