Year of the Rooster

  by Nadine Lockhart



You in the café, pink with banners 
hanging through the avenues. 

Stoplights blink riotous, bare-breasted 
women with their lipsticked nipples. 

Piped music: harmonica singer, stringing
his instrument like a cartridge belt.

A glass lantern splits open, broken 
bits of reflection.  

You read the newspaper and the New Year 
folds over a crimson comb.