1
Floating in a bubble bath amniotic
in a state of two minds nearly hypnotic,
our hero lingers gingerly in his comfy bath-womb
as his rubber duckie glides by with yellow plumage aplomb.
He gestates and sleeps,
pondering sheep, the Spanish Armada, and mid-season sweeps.
A dormancy now that will last longer in duration
than any slumber he will have in life, especially with dual occupations.
Like twins, he is two embryos from a single zygote -
but with one body, four eyes on two heads atop more than one throat.
And although his mother and father are regular human beings,
in the ultrasound already, we can see that he is a red dragon with wings!

2
The obstetrician was freaked out but trying to be kind.
She said, “The pregnancy can still be terminated today with no extra fines.
I promise that it will be quick and painless.
Just stay away from the media. And please, please don’t mention this.”
Larry and Lin Lu were both horrified through and through.
It was late in the second trimester with Lin Lu nearly the size of Shamu.
And certainly, a dragon in the uterus was uncustomary,
but an abortion was wrong to Catholics like Lin and Larry.
Lin looked at the sonogram a final time with a sigh and a shrug,
Maybe she’d been given a lizard embryo or too many fertility drugs?
Wiping from her belly the clear gel now smeared,
Lin Lu pulled down her shirt and said, “Let’s go. We are out of here.”

3
Wordless, Larry helped Lin into their beaten up Nissan Largo
and moved aside a deluge of the impending baby’s clutter and cargo.
“Funny,” Lin said to Larry, “We were both born in the Year of the Dragon.
So no surprise really that our son’s got a long tail a-wagging.”
She laughs, but her eyes mist for a moment
until they narrow into a long, resolute squint.
“What’s done is done. Fate may have pulled on us a fast one.
But no matter what, I will unconditionally love our son.”
To this challenge, Lin was ready to rise.
Mouth still agape, Larry looked ready to cry.
Lin’s face flashed fierce, firm and determined.
Larry stared blank with the paternal surprise of Senator Strom Thurmond.

4
Years before Lin, Larry was to marry Ms. Cathryn Caroline.
A buxom blond bird-watcher he had casually met online.
She satisfied his every waking thought and desire.
And in sleep, he was mired with longing images of her in scanty attire.
Over dinner with both families at a famous Chinese restaurant,
Larry’s mom finally conceded to him and his aunt,
“It’s ok you marry caucasian.
Mixed race baby beautiful end to the equation.”
Larry teased, “Then I can also donate my sperm
to my black lesbian friends for carrying to term?”
Mrs. Lu turned white then blue as she swallowed her own tongue.
They raced to the Hospital to dislodge it along with the Egg Fu Yung.

5
For Larry and Cathryn Caroline,
the heat of new bodies intertwined gradually did decline.
Their days became rote habits in cohabitation
and then annoyance with too much interpersonal concentration.
Larry’s heart was still rendered raw though when she left,
his life now utterly desiccated and bereft.
So when Lin, an old friend from college came by to say hi,
he forsake love for a whim, something safe and easy to try.
He never thought she was the girl of his dreams,
though she’s certainly out of his league even without his low self-esteem.
And she did have those sturdy, round child-bearing hips,
so they sealed sort of a kind of love under that night’s lunar eclipse.

6
Larry married Lin on a windy Wednesday in February
in a church by fields of blossoms and wild red and pink cherry.
Larry’s manner was mild and respectful,
but Lin felt him cold and neglectful.
Larry lavished attention on family, friends and folks from the office,
talking about the week’s account transactions and audits.
But every step and word he said to her seemed perfunctory,
and he barely listened to the priest’s prayers and opening story:
“Lin and Larry were here last year to celebrate the Eucharist,”
said Father Phil, “And I knew we had a great love in our midst.
Larry’s cell went off as I poured from the chalice,
He cursed; Lin giggled and blew him a kiss.”