synchronicity

I know Nan Hai Da Dao
is eighteen flags wide
four days before National Day,

because I counted.
Lines of them stream by
Shekou Wo Er Ma

south to the promised Hai.
Not a trace of irony
in the synchronicity

of a Walmart sign beyond
a billboard celebrating
sixty years of the PRC,

an orgy of consumption
Sunday evening in the square
between Wo Er Ma and Garden City

Mall, the child’s toy
I can hear but cannot see
in the middle of it playing

“Simple Gifts,” the young kid who says
screw you when I wave off a flyer
advertising one more thing

I would have to throw away later,
and I laugh out loud because
I have no reason

to argue, no rhyme
to make it right.

poem © Steven Schroeder
image © Mary Ann O'Donnell

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