Meg Eden

Mickey’s Mao Suit

on Beijing Shijingshan amusement park

Mickey insists, I’m not a mouse! I’m just
a cat with unusually round ears.

Mickey, cut the bull crap. We all know
copyright infringement when we see it.
Even the costume teens admit their stolen
identities. It’s only the overworked mothers
who snap like socialists:

Shouldn't others be able to use
those characters besides Disney?

Seven refugee dwarfs with careless
eyes wave to the cameras, which translates:
Always protect your social security numbers.
You never know who they’ll make love to.
The dwarfs cluster by weeping woman statue,
bearing trademark Snow White tendencies.

Mickey tells me, Disneyland is too
far away, please come here—
But tourist evidence reveals
a loss more fragile—

If we are name-stealers,
then call me Wendy Zhang.
Let me be twenty poets.
Let me run whole-heartedly
through pavement-seas
with this dangerous freedom.

Meg Eden's work has been published in various magazines, including B O D Y, Neon, HOOT, and Rock & Sling. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and received second place in the 2014 Ian MacMillan Fiction contest. Her collections include Your Son (The Florence Kahn Memorial Award), Rotary Phones and Facebook (Dancing Girl Press) and The Girl Who Came Back (Red Bird Chapbooks). She teaches at the University of Maryland, and will be a visiting writer at AACC in 2014. Check out her work at: https://www.facebook.com/megedenwritespoems