Japan Painting

Way below the rattle of dimsum carts
up in Soho, the spires of tired Pilipinas
potter about the thick trombolo of neon.
Misplaced geishas, they pass through faces
more simple and more broke, lacking
the ancient powder of while nightingale
droppings, that alabaster glow, beneath
eyes and brows penciled crimson and black,
lacking even a quick rosebud painted on their lips,
without magenta kimonos
or wooden pillows for split-peach hair,
without revealing the softly erotic
fork of skin, unpainted up the back
they wince and pull, digging fingernails into flesh
because everything is potential
clientele – this is no
teahouse engagement – they jack their knobby
toes on the sidewalk like the mangled kittens stalking
the same avenue hungrier and sicker but no less
desperate for a letter, a pay phone, a six pack
of pepsi or ticket back to Manila.
Now rain falls in shards and they are packed
into the covered stariwells and walkways as tight
as their client in cafes on vacation
in sun in vino in Florence, but here they squat
over newspapers, whole families
playing cards and plunging sturdy
fingers into tubs or peanut butter
from 7 eleven or circle K
amidst the sick flanks of day-old beef swinging
clockwise on iron-blasted hooks,
meat cleavers tossing scraps
of light and dancing deep into brutish lumps of pig feet
and eel and the enormous ox tongue there
hooked, for sale. They lick another evening of sweaty
air and dodge the air-conditioners,
spitting the clear and copious
residue of the night.

Can anyone analyse for me? what is it about?