Poem (At night Chinamen jump)
By Frank O’Hara
At night Chinamen jump
on Asia with a thump
while in our willful way
we, in secret, play
affectionate games and bruise
our knees like China’s shoes.
The birds push apples through
grass the moon turns blue,
these apples roll beneath
our buttocks like a heath
full of Chinese thrushes
flushed from China’s bushes.
As we love at night
birds sing out of sight,
Chinese rhythms beat
through us in our heat,
the apples and the birds
move us like soft words,
we couple in the grace
of that mysterious race.
Copyright Credit: Frank O’Hara, "Poem (At night Chinamen jump)" from Meditations in an Emergency. Copyright © 1957 by Frank O’Hara. Reprinted with the permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc., www.groveatlantic.com.
Source: The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara (1995)