X Goes To The Zoo
by Wawa

X, people are so excited about their lives here. Look.
Their lives must be the entire universe.
(What about sunbeams flickering across a wheat field?)
Stop smiling back, X. Not you. Look,

That good person is going to cry. Good people’s sympathy.
(Can I use the bathroom now?)
Someone must be important and it must be something really important.
Something must be very serious too. Look,
They are looking at us.
(We saw them looking at us.)
X, listen. They are listening.
(We’re okay with their sound.)

X, nobody can hear you. You can smile now.

Wawa is a Hong Kong poet and political essayist. She is the author of Pei Pei the Monkey King (Tinfish, 2016), and Anna and Anna (Finishing Line Press, 2018). She has also been organising San Francisco Bay Area communities around the 2019 Hong Kong protests through the arts.