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Arlene Ang
A Driving Student Visualizes the Center of an Intersection
It's a press conference,
an unpleasant event, with spare parts.
The middle of the intersection
plants her social life in a plastic bucket.
Her fear of optics turns green.
The driving instructor wants an interview.
Wants to know where
she thinks she's heading.
She sees him holding a skull in one hand
and forgetting to floss between
his front teeth with the other.
She puts her head closer to the steering wheel.
She feels about to speak up.
Halfway across, she stutters the engine
to death. The car zigzags,
like a caesarian cut, a nervous tic.
She follows its movement
with her hair. Her arms cross and recross
over the steering wheel,
over all the things
they can't believe they're doing.
Distance
With the body taken away,
the room reverts to darkness.
The hospital bed catches
the moonlight, like a bad tooth.
Death is grinning here,
and life moves as a reaction
to the physical objects
around it. The walls are
bruised by shadows.
And somewhere,
behind the curtains,
a daughter stirs ice chips
into her vodka with a finger.
When pressed against
the left breast, a cold drink
supplants the heart.
The window overlooks
the sidewalk---an extinction
itself, a barn owl as it
keeps its distance
from the eggs that have
fallen from the nest.
Arlene Ang is the author of four poetry collections, the most recent being a collaborative work with Valerie Fox, Bundles of Letters Including A, V and Epsilon (Texture Press, 2008). She lives in Spinea, Italy where she serves as staff editor for The Pedestal Magazine and Press 1. More of her work may be viewed at www.leafscape.org.
fall 2006
Face out of the Blue
Her cardigan is smoke screen,
like the handbag a nondescript Chanel.
Under the market lights,
all signatures are fake. No one looks
at her for quick cash; beggars steal away.
A clothes rack falls, yellow and red cheongsam
tarnish the ground like dragons.
For years she wore her mother's clothes.
Boxes of beads, hairpieces, cosmetics
stifled the hallway. Her one-room flat
is the testament found
in an old woman's hand, a name
that littered the beds of many many men.
Dust Addressing Its Lover
for Lucio
Brooms exist because of dirt,
this need to hygienize every rush of skin.
Despite the invention of vacuums,
you hold on to old-fashioned long handles.
Preferably wood. The friction
of brush on tiles, the front porch
sometimes causes whispery clouds,
sometimes grunted swishes.
There is nothing as efficient when urging
glass shards, corks, cat fur
up the dustpan, from under the rug,
out bathroom doors, or reaching deeply
under the bed where my flues lie in wait.
Sweep them, darling, sweep them!
The Butcher Unburdens His Heritage
Caro, carnis, the Romans understood flesh,
masticated substance like blue-bottle flies.
Deboning game for housewives,
he imagines centurions, the reign of triclinia,
virgins undraping toga to offer mutton.
Tongue unleashes the animal. He licks away
the wetness of fantasy, peels the salami.
Corpus, corporis, his grandfather
sketched nudes of his concubines:
trussed turkey, haunch of venison, shaved rabbits.
Morbus, morbi, atrophied bovine liver,
mad cow disease, his mother's slap after the cooler
incident, his unzipped pants chafed by hung blood.
He whacks a series of T-bone steaks,
rubs against his Colt behind the counter.
Aunt Lavinia sentinels over cold storage:
rendezvous with flanks of beef a humid red dream.
Women line up for his rooster parts,
the rump roast, compliment his meatballs.
Inedia, inedae, his hand flaccid around the knife.
****
Caro, carnis: flesh
Corpus, corporis: body, substance, matter; esp. the body of men and
animals; flesh, the trunk; sometimes a corpse.
Morbus, morbi: sickness, disease, illness.
Inedia, inedae: fasting, abstinence from food.
The Nineteenth Secret Love Poem
Muffled light from the curtains glows
the dresser mirror. The clown base
makes my sclera appear yellow. Some days
I mix bright colors in a pot, come up
with shades of gray. The sponge is cold,
like cake batter dripping down the leg
of her table that afternoon she kissed me
and promised her lips were sealed.
That day I noticed the cookies jars
on the top shelf; my arms stretched
to their limit. She still lowers her gaze
behind her children, keeps
her hands busy under a pink apron,
inflates balloons with one breath while
I watch. We rarely laugh when we're alone,
our tongues interlock like key rings.
Six times a year for each child, she
asks me to drive over. In time, perhaps
we shall outgrow each other. For now,
she lets her daughters take my candies.
On stage, I hint about marriage
in every gesture, my juggling act a front
for trysts beside the fridge while her
husband dozes by the birthday cake.
Arlene Ang
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