KEVIN DOBBS is an American expatriate who has lived in Japan for the last 16 years. His poems, fiction and non-fiction have appeared recently in Mid-American Review, maverickmagazine.com, New York Quarterly, Raritan: a Quarterly Review, Gulfstream, Beloit Fiction Journal, Florida Review, Karamu, Chelsea, and others. Disgusted with the oppression and poor conditions facing workers in Japan, he has gotten heavily involved as an organizer in the Japanese Labor and Civil Rights Movements.

COCA COLA IN THE CHANG CHUN
CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL, 1991

It tastes so good

Zhong Zhong wants the mortician

to pump his veins with it so

his body won't stiffen in his coffin.

Don't be silly, the nurse says

as she bed-bathes him, wipes his

little pink balls with

a hot wash cloth. He likes this part best.

He leg-lifts his skinny butt

slightly, slow-wags his hips

in small circles: she smiles

at him suspiciously

but rubs a little harder as he

drinks his Coke a little faster.

 

Copyright © Kevin Dobbs, 2005. All Rights Reserved.
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