Hey

 

Wrap yourself around Me 40 x 40 x 4,5 cm

 

MAKE-OVER

 

And the POETRY edition dedicated

   to Asian-American women

poets in prison?    that you happened?    to appear in?

   I think I’m jumping

   the gun a little. Too many effing question marks. We both

need a make-over. The only way you earn money

   out of me

is I stop writing this poem immediately

   and start a screenplay about

a totally made up YOU born in Macao  

   who at age three is sold to adoptive parents.

   In Hollywood. “Swimming pools, movie stars.” 

Your name is Liz, Elizabeth Caroline Wu, to be

   pedantic about it, but wait a sec,

back up, let’s turn this thing into a novel instead,

   a crime novel

about the world’s first and hopefully last

   Asian-American hit woman

slash summa cum laude graduate in Women’s Studies

   U.C. Berkeley slash poet, expert in radical discourses

set in strophic verse. However. Slipping a mickey to mainly male victims

   then suffocating them with a yellow satin pillow

is your real forte, even raison d’ etre. You never need  

   say a word and no one feels a thing.

   PERFECT. Let’s add your entrepreneurial success,

Silicon Valley start-up, ultimate move to Austin, seduction

 

   of billionaire space cadet Rafon Tusk who gradually

absorbs your company, fires the board, installs himself as CEO

   so you have no choice but to

take him out, a little powder in his energy drink,

   apply the satin pillow

over his always stuffy nose, and over that pouty

    mouth of his that you once thought was so “cute”

   but now detest, two pillows, and voila

Rafon’s no more than a glorified rumor on the lips

   of grieving podcasters.

   But wait a sec, back up, let’s simplify

this thing, dial it back, make you look more interesting

   than you actually are. FIRST: really short hair.

What used to be called a Little Boy’s haircut but this time for girls.

   Then a tattoo of a red spider

crawling up one of your mini-skirted thighs. PERFECT. A cluster

of readymade fans making selfies

   with you at some content-free

red carpet event in Bakersfield.

You never need say a word and no one feels a friggin thing.