We both knewwhat was coming,but still we argueduntil the end. Until the attendantssecured the maskover my faceand lowered meslowly into stasis. At the last secondyou put your handup to the glass,just like in a movie;I was too druggedto lift mine,but tried to tell youwith my eyes,It’s not too lateyou can still join meon the other…
Tag: Poem
Nan-e
Nan-e, this is a messageTo say: I love you.With mum busyYou make me Content. Wake me With musicSpeak Latin At breakfastPull lessons from cloudsChart progress. You,Set food remindersSet pill remindersNan-e,Count my stepsGuard me from Germs and Conditions;Save myCookies, readBed-time storiesOver speakersAt night; I imagineThe next episodes Of my favourite showsWithout your parentalControls. Nan-e, remember When…
The Few Who Eat Us
Who could fail to admirethose few who eat uswithout compunction? Great whites rip with serrated teethand call others inwith your hemosignal. Tigers when you are sweating and swatting in the banded shadowswill crush your throat. Crocodiles will bite then twisttheir whole body roundto strip you clean. Most admirable of all are polar bearsnearly invisible in…
You Met God in a Gas Station at 3AM and He Hated You
He bought a pack of Rizlas and kept you waiting while he counted the change.You stood perfectly still to hold the moment open and tried not to care about how he stared at your tits. This was one of those nights where the world had endedand you hoped it would begin again with an empty…
Commerce
I was caught in the loops of a dream, walking through streets where paint flaked off the walls and buildings crumbledwith the memory of long monsoons. I entered a crowded bazaar. In my hands I held a shapeless parcel, battered,wrapped in dirty cloth. I could readLOVE on it in many languages. Each time carefully crossed…
Dead Drop
the phonebox stood at the edge of an abandoned trading estateand was easy to missI fumbled for coins in the darknessthe call was brief he spoke without accent he sounded tired contents fragilehandle with care it was a couple of hours before the message went out I watched from a café across the streetmy pager…
Dream #14: The Egg
Previously published in Lungs. In my dream I boiled an eggto relive a childhood pleasure, to dip in – but there were so many otherchores to do in that moment. Packing my bags, dusting awaya matrix of web, and my kitchenhad stretched to a banquet hall – candle litand murky with my father’s antediluvian wares.So…
Grand Hotel
As a courtesy, the government manlets the manager sit in onthe surveillance. But the cameras are the hotel’s, and the manager thinksit’s his courtesy. The other agentsin the room could set him straight,but their chief signals them to stand down. On the screen they’re watching,a man viewed from the ceiling in green lightuneasily sleeps. Earlier…
Dishonorable Trade
the rain chills him to the marrow.he is meant to be human, not humane,and the potential of the axe is resting, for now, on the scaffold. a lady’s head is bowed as she steps forward to the crowd, the weather darkening her hair, weighing her crown. the man can see the vertebrae of her spine,…
DADT
My best friend in the Air Force was gay;she separated eighteen months before DADT became NOYFB. She worked in the basehospital; I worked the flightline. Once on a frosty October morning, tumble-weed skeletons piling up on the perimeter fence, I walked into her clinic. She wore her BDUswell, I thought. With blue gloves she lifted…