Sitting in the Lobby of the Peninsula Shanghai
I want to know why it is that glitter replaced ink,
And all the artworks of a great nation
Were wrapped up in a smirking irony
Embracing the gaudy demands of materialism
But grasping its ideals with wrenched palms.
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But then I remember
An embrace never opens up the world.
It silently covets a corner
And creates another hiding place within it.