arlene ang
from "approximative translations"
fifteen : brother
hear
the pop :
fifteen glass eyes
escape : as could possibly be
potted ferns bouncing from the asphalt : not on view : derailed roller
coaster cars form a strange variety of rope burns : nicotine & stuffed owls
weighing down the walls : silhouette of leg prosthesis :
hemmed as smallpox : the house is leaving its skeletal
puppets to the foghorn : tea leaf mutation into taste that obscures the mouth :
separate boxes for what's left of childhood : matchboxes & coke :
count the premature endings : this
place is not a
place of
birth
The Burglar Who Went Around with My Laundry Bag
Last night he hit several homes.
He emptied my clothes on the floor
until the pile grew and obscured his reflection
in the mirror. It couldn't have happened
any other way. He took three out of five soup cans
and half of the strawberry cake from the fridge:
his hunger is a lesson in clarity.
The moon was full. Did he watch me, like a parent,
make knots in my hair while I slept?
He dropped my hairbrush
in the bedroom of a woman two blocks away --
as if to say we are, at heart, the same
person. He lives for the discovery
that physical changes occur
when we're not looking. This much is understood.
The local police took pictures
of objects with the hope that one or two
were from him: footprints, cigarettes, a candy wrapper
without the candy. Afterwards, they too
left. To watch my house from this distance
is to see an orphan sit so still
she might have been frozen in the desire
to bring back the dead. The door,
like a front tooth, is missing.
