"Chinatown" by Whitelaw Saunders

1922

CHINATOWN

By Whitelaw Saunders

Entangled streets, with odors subtle, strange,
And stranger gods of gilded bronze and jade;
A thinking monotone of melody
Behind a curtained window softly played.
In satin slippers, gift-embroidered robes,
The women patter down the crowded street
With babies, cherry-cheeked and starry-eyed,
Who follow them with slow, uncertain feet.
Tong men who take their way where shadows lie,
Old men with mask-like faces, dried and brown,
And dusky yellow lights like dragons' eyes,
The pageant of the dusk * * * in Chinatown.

—The Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, Nebraska, June 14, 1922, page 4.