In the rice field

In a rice field, you and I

where form and shadow meet

admitting soaking secret spurts

amidst the sunburnt ripening seeds

we mould our bodies wrapped in silk

flesh spreading mud on flesh

To plant your soul threads deep within

fingers sculpting hard to soft

senses thick and glisten crisp

breaths thinning breaths entwined

chests stretching swell to meet.

Hidden from world’s hurried lies

We pace to the precipice of life and fall

the promise of the promised somewhere

A place we met in our dreams

Hold breath until

Hold breath until

Cold pizza

The man had scraped together six dollars and thirty cents, just enough for a slice of pizza and a bit of dirty water. “This makes me a bit of a regular now, twice in three months,” he beamed at the television set in the corner. Cameras flashed. A Minister spat into a microphone. Everywhere was news, amusement and abuse. But he didn’t complain—it was, after all, warmth from the chill, and a place to anchor the constant light-headedness. He hugged the pizza to his chest as he walked to his table. Even though it was already cold, he savoured the first bite to the last.

His hunger temporarily satisfied, he felt another need stirring as he watched a woman walk in from the cold. He could toy with his elastic waist, wander along her neck, get lost in her hair. “It’s a date, isn’t it”, he said, nodding a smirk in her direction. But he saw the fear in her eyes instead. He was cultured too, he wanted to say. He went to see the opera many years ago, when the sun was high, things were good, and the cup aplenty. He gulped down his water, and wished for a greater truth, a simpler lie, or a more colourful sunrise.

Myth

Every man has a myth, and every myth has a pom pom.

Flying

You move skyward, until the air clears, and the moon’s shimmer is just beyond your grasp. The skirt of your garment floats like feathers, and behind the rush of wind nothing but stillness in the night. You dive backwards giggling, doing somersaults over and around, until you glimpse a form floating towards you. What’s in a name? He asks, tilting his head in a question. You ponder and open your mouth to speak, but you cannot speak. You try to take a breath but the air is thin, and you no longer remember the question. The moment you forget, your weightlessness disappears, and you fall faster than you have ever known.

The Old Shanghai

The broken man at a wooden piano

Squeezes out half a tune

Echoes in the Washburn chamber

Upon it hyacinths in bloom.

He no longer recalls

The Old Shanghai

Glimpses so, fragments bare

White streaks in the sky

In the shade

The lemonade sweats in the shade, and Peter is cutting off lizards' tails again. Someone somewhere is having a barbeque, while the cicadas dance to a rehearsing trumpet miles away. The woman rolls onto her stomach, crunching the dry grass beneath her. She shuts her eyes to the sun, but feels at sea, unmoored and drifting left and right, floating eastward.

The Mirror

She would stand for hours before the mirror. She would place one foot in front of the other, turn her body to the left, turn her body to the right, move in, move back, then turn to shuffle her feet again. It was always easy to tell when she liked when she saw. She would smile, gesture at herself with her hand in a fanning motion, and make approving sounds. She never did, but if she looked into the mirror at my reflection, she would have seen the shame on my face.

I don’t believe it was teenage angst, because the shame was not reserved for my mother alone. I cringed whenever my friends stared into the mirror too—to apply make-up, or mould their fringe into a perfect beach wave. It always amazed me just how long they could do that—lean forward and glare at every inch of their face. They would poke a stick under their eyes, dab powder on their cheeks, lean back and survey, wipe it all off and start again.

Maybe in this way I grew up being impatient, but I cannot stand watching anyone looking at themselves. Even daily routines frustrate me. People spend an inordinate amount of time looking into the mirror each morning: wrestle down the hair, wash the detritus from their eyes, adjust the tie around their neck, or clear their chin of midnight stubble. No matter how you rationalise, the mirror tells you, this, this look there, is not presentable. Do this, fix that. And the grander the purpose, the more ridiculous it seems. The man in a new suit going about his daily business acquires an air of arrogance as soon as he stops to admire himself in the mirror. The bride is no longer a woman who finds happiness the moment she is mesmerised by the reflection of herself in a fitted tea lace gown—she becomes an ego inflated: the turn of her head to the left says “I am beautiful,” and the turn to the right says: “Everyone look at me.” Self-importance in every peek, conceit in every glance. There is no escaping the vanity embedded in a painted glass.