Made in China
I wonder how many millions
of small white worm
cocoons were unraveled to make
his tie. I imagine vast fields
of them, confined and shining,
hanging somewhere in an overseas
warehouse under yellow lights
lost to dust. How large
the flock of skin-cracked hands
that descends each night, plucks
away each almost-moth and
boils it alive to claim
its labor. The red tie flaps wildly
in the wind around his face as
he descends and he swats at it
like it were the moth
that might have been there,
mistaking his eyes
for some kind of light.