I fell in love with a Chinese communist

I fell in love with a Chinese communist
He looked like he knew about decisions -
his hair was square
and he was oddly ancient in conversation.
The courtship was modest his kisses like sesames,
we sat legs origami on blankets watching them wash tarmac for officials.
We were married -
agreed on proceedings,
made plans for where things would live domestically.
We were ergonomic, we worked tirelessly wearing a uniform of affection
and were even positive about planning for the prevention of tall thin lipless children.
We were optimistic about the changes, followed the leaflet instructions and put the bhuddas out on the street, filled in forms about income and heritage,
draped the computer in red velvet each night before sleep.
We were meticulous with hygienics and made love silently breathing into each others lips.
All the pictures we gave to the museum
And satisfied with atrophy gave ourselves over to the new flat blocks.
Oh what we said to the visitors was articulate
If we were like something, it was acres of complex under concrete.
While we slept we played Jenga with outputs, bought day dreams of technology which we dragged over lily ponds trailing shark flakes, converting kimonos, collating conceits.
We gave our hopes up like sofas
which we left out in the street
and in the dark pressed the valves repeatedly.
It wasn’t that we didn’t feel, more that our spines were compacted and we couldn’t look up.
We gave birth to a son who collapsed into our arms like perfect. We fed him rice and jasmine and he grew telescopic.

We taught him humility, manners, money,
had table conversations about testing tomb linings for mercury.
He went to discos, spoke slangily, and was angry all the time at everything.
He said we didn’t really get it and nor did the town planners,
that we were the perameters of productivity.
We just kept growing grass in hexagons, making dumplings, covering the carpets,
and he fell eventually in love with an ideology.
One evening, we crept in to see him dreaming hoping to still see some good in the ancient decision of having made him.
But we caught him powerpointing slides onto his duvet,
finger tracing sky scrapers of halogen along his penis.