Dream elements from parcel #24
You write a love letter,
confess to swallowing
sharp things for strength.
You see him opening
the folded paper--the edges
lined with razors to cause
not only paper cuts.
You catch a whiff of the hand
that unfurls the paper--
the fragrance of dried rivers on his skin,
the scent his wife cannot smell.
Friday Night Theater
The moon, a stranded
barge on a black sea,
a bloated caricature
with a ligature around
the neck is simplified
into an identifiable
geometric form.
The stars are salt
crystals over a world
littered by all the things
that you cannot have.
You let them be. The crush
of night people steadies
you in place.
Greta's Lost Shoe
Greta's red slippers now match the carpet.
Touching her lips, the cutlery is silver, not
stainless steel. Evian water swirls inside
her mouth, deciphers the drops of ocean
caught in a bucket. Greta is seashell
and brushfire, nothing to offer but her
manners and perfect teeth, her showgirl
costumes and Barbie-doll eyes. I smile,
talk about the weather. I guess she has
forgotten my name and our small town
beginnings. Again, I distract her, catch
her attention by feigning disinterest.
Leftovers from the Urban Project
I bob among the colliding
bubbles of city people.
The streets have grown
longer last night,
and fog becomes my
only landmark home.
Photograph of a Bus Terminal
On the walls, the graffiti stars
have shone long enough
to make everyone wonder
if they are real or not.
Waiting on the bench, the passengers
keep souvenir items inside their bags,
and plain old misgivings for running away
this early. A lady studies a job ad cutout,
while a man with the nose ring contemplates
the lady's legs. An old woman frowns with
distaste at a long-haired high school student.
A man takes his first bite from a doughnut,
honey-glazed from the look of it; his
wedding ring catches the light. Somebody has left
a crumpled styrofoam cup under the bench.
Rejection Slips and other Reasons to Eat Vegetables
Those rejection slips--they make any writer thrive.
They are posthumous birthday cards.
They are segments of souls dipped in prosthetics.
They are hungry, wry, toothless, raw (sometimes
well-done to a crisp).
They are the legs of giant fruit flies.
They are free (the handwritten ones may be sold for a
dime).
They are crammed, swollen and safe, in their envelopes
and mailed unsupervised by their mothers.
They are babies who are born flat, born wailing and
kicking
to breach their two-dimensional configuration,
and that is why writers must smell them,
wring them, lick them, smack them, pet them.
Shutter
Always in search for the thing I am unwilling
to discover, I have witnessed time travelers
emerge out of the fog where the hedges meet
what mathematicians call "an axis which passes
through the origin." The point of origin is usually
assigned to zero, and that must be the reason why
those tourists have chosen Mr. Dramb's back lot.
The composting cow manure has been stacked away
from there. They look so pitiful, so lost; I cannot
tell them to go farther from this small town,
to get lost. They take pictures of themselves.
In the background, a pitchfork rests against the
haystack.
This Side of Town
All houses are built with doors
facing eastward. The grass in lawns
bestows a new dimension to green.
All windows are created equal.
All of them cannot be trusted
to let in only the necessary light.
There are no rooms so dark
their corners can make you cry.
The luxury of a fence post
is not denied. This is the neighborhood
where the safety of a lampshade is not
the only thing that its inhabitants can afford.
There are no gum-smacking bimbos
with frizzy hair, fake gold watches,
and lips red as the skin of the under-eyes.
There are no loudmouthed husbands
with faces like suns--all globe
and yellow and no fire.
There are no housewives with curlers
stuck on their hair. No children
that will soon live off from welfare.
All the screams and scratches
on the wall from flung conjugal
furniture are just illusions.
***
Kristine Ong Muslim
