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Poetry
Ajji oiled and combed my hair for hours. She said that combing is kindness as though the small-teethed comb could catch and carry my worries, and not just lice. Call me prejudiced but the C words do not stick like sweat on my skin – choice, consent, calcium. I suffer from deficiencies of my own making. That’s how marriages work, you say.
Poetry
you the thump-thump bass as I drowned in the bellow of our ballad, worn leather mouthing words from neon lights. Skyline clumped beneath the white crescents of your nails; sprinkled into smog like glitter, these two lungs exhaling ten intertwined fingers and
Poetry
Alison Morse weaves a heartbreaking narrative of garment factory workers’ life through the scope of Human sufferings, paved with lack of accountability by owners and substandard working conditions.
Poetry
Better still, there are Oranges in Europe and Grapes in South Melbourne and A man from the Northern suburbs with a belt that Wears studs and a tattoo I know better than to Question, who Offers me a coffee with half a spoon of sugar.
Poetry
I thought I was Orpheus’s head floating down the Hebrus still singing, but I was not singing—
Poetry
A teacher once asked if I lived on the dirty side of the Philippines, I had to think what she meant—if she meant a part easier to ignore homeless kids on the streetsides with cardboard blankets curled up like street dogs; if dirty meant poor meant eating rice with soy sauce ‘cause mama couldn’t afford meat;
Poetry
Flowers I can’t name stretch over the lip of a windowsill to stare into the swooning sun. I will not sing, but I am tempted.
Poetry
the spider climbs the spout the wheels on the bus go round Jack gets the magic beans and I say ding dong we are all scrambling out of the frying pan where dozens of eggs were broken to make incredible inedible omelets
Poetry
What I recall from night is tangled in the uneasy rising of a new day. No need to fiddle in my sleep
Poetry
I say it again and again and again until my fingers turn red against the sink. Because I can’t remember my body the last time it was mine.
Poetry
What a miracle, We’re taught The barbed wire fences, Are to be finally taken off Mottos of life, history of people Worthy Stories, worthy Men Women, are to be taken care of We’re taught The summer precedes autumn Autumn precedes winters
Poetry
In my dream, you ride your bike up the road and I wave goodbye. It’s okay. Everything is okay. I can let go now. But in my dream—now my nightmare—you never come back.
Poetry
Each sweep of his diligence hails you though & now you’d bet he’s underpaid & the sun’s enlightened all things & you’re the street, slowly redeemed of debris.
Poetry
Mom’s yelling about my sister’s cigarettes, boyfriends and beer again. My mom Smokes Kools and always has a can of Blatz nearby.
Poetry
You empty my cup By filling Hers
Poetry
No wonder, you who know history, read portents, now sleep uneasily, blades wrapped in raw leather tucked beneath your pillows. Morning lines at the whetstone, coffee and small chatter, conspiratorial whispers, a dime’s blot of oil, grinding steel on stone—
Poetry
“Say sorry Mita, ju leetle sinverguenza, pendeja for estupidez! Her sharp words slice through the pineapples on the tropical wallpaper of her tiny dark kitchen scattering drops of sweet juice on my cheek and on one eyelash that dangles in front of my pupil too afraid to fall off
Poetry
But this is poem and not hopeful consonance so I write ephemeral which is fleeting and ethereal which is artificial construct of the human brain
Poetry
there is life happening across this world, around it, inside it at the instant tea touches your lips in the morning; you: not alone in your husk, it is happening, right now, you, me, separated by our skins
Poetry
He takes me to a bed where there is no rest I rattle with him His moans overpower the sirens of the street and shakes his body in a variety of motions
Poetry
Wall after wall, cave after cave, many armed, many legged, many headed desire dances its heart out. Liberated by the im- measurable devotion of anonymous hands.
Poetry
the love you feel when a baby is first born the night he left for college (the morning he returned but only because he forgot his hat)
Poetry
I tremble in a flower’s vocabulary— retract my hands like from a hot sky or suddenness dreams which pass through my body are no different from hands
Poetry
You don’t see her, hair like wings ephemeral catching fire from Florida sun, wire fences no match for birds taking flight unnaturally.