I meet my husband under a nameless bridge in this brainwashed city. All identity is buried under the red of the sun.
Our memories return, hesitant and pregnant with guilt twitching under our skin like the tap tap of phantom sticks playing marching tunes. My skin is embossed with napalm scars, indelible maps, like our wounded land — healed but still wet underneath. Do you remember, the orange of the fires that burnt the ground, the naked trees that joined our hands waving at planes we called our friends?
You look, hot, my husband. Your shirt seems to sweat for you, was England that cold? Let me undo those cuffs that hold your wrists tightly crossed behind your back.
Do you remember how Mum used to simmer clear soup for hours then laid the carcasses beside the pho? Just bones drained of life, all the meat boiled off. Don’t bring back the dead. Don’t take me back to bed, where the names are still engraved. Leave them buried.
Heavy whispers sneak over pillows from lips to ears, refertilising the memories of our children slaughtered by the shrapnel of our broken promises.
He may be white inside, but he will always be yellow to me, no words can whitewash his skin.
(first published in Flashquake Spring 2008 Vol 7 Issue 3)
***
Some foreign field
A can of Canada Dry ginger ale lies exposed, torn in half. A tramp sniffs it for booze. It smells of fruit fermenting in wet packs. His boots are rotten, toecaps lifting off dirt-encrusted feet. He looks like he has marched a long way, from a far off bunker in some foreign field to this hidden place under a leafy bush in St. James Park.
The green map of Canada expands, reflected in sodium streetlights, mixing with leaves and covering him with lines of longitude and latitude, like a thin wire cage.
Now the soldiers lack stealth as they march, feet tapping on thin aluminium. He can almost hear their communiqués, the Morse code of tiny feet. The tramp shuffles deeper under the bush, allowing shadows to hide him from enemy eyes. Police sirens keep him on the edge of sleep.
Soft grass sighs as it is crushed under the running feet of a young boy, too young for cigarettes. He coughs up smoke in great mustard swirls. He looks around, eyes hidden under his cap with U2’s Achtung Baby emblazoned on it. He flicks the glowing tip, sparks flaring bright, and lobs it like a grenade, into the ginger ale can. He flees.
Soldier ants rush out over No Man’s Land and flattened poppies into their trenches.
There is two minutes silence.
The boom-boom of nightclubs shudder leaves, raining them down like shrapnel on the tramp. He flinches, retreating further into the ambush of sleep.
(first published in Ink Sweat and Tears: 14 July 2007)
***
Waiting
I hate waiting – always have.
Memories are littered with queues springing up, ambushing me whilst I rushed for trains, and zoo visits in torrential rain marred by people with umbrellas leaping out from under trees.
I wished, back in the twenty first century, that I had time to watch the tigers.
3pm
I waited in lines with other passive aggressives whilst many tigers died.
4pm
I wasted so much time that tigers became extinct.
5pm
Luckily I found the secret of eternal life by accident, whilst waiting in the Post Office.
6pm
The secret is to hold onto life so tightly that none of it can slip through your hands.
7pm
In time it became effortless.
8pm
The problem, as I found out, is letting go.
9pm
I searched for the wisest minds in all the earth and beyond.
10pm
I waited in long queues to see them.
11pm
They did not know – how I could let go. Wisdom, they said, is not holding on so tightly in the first place.
12am
I still hate waiting, even with all the time in the world.
(first published in Ink Sweat and Tears: 11 June 2007)
***
Night Nemesis
The sound of birds herald the silk of night as it comes to rest on my skin, sticking like memories of lies laid down with good intentions. Sounds of day crawl back into nests and recede into caves. The sun’s second-hand light provides no heat – just the cold of a silver sickle, shining, futile in the shadowed sky, trying to hold back the flood.
We are ready to do our part, clasping to branches, close enough to feel the warmth of a thousand bodies. The moon is so thin now; the arc of a drooping leaf hides it.
Then the moon disappears and my body hums, a reflex action in unison with my entire race. I burst into light, a silent explosion of lilac pushing back blackness.
The night screams out in rustles and wails.
We sing songs of hope, songs of how we will make it through – to see the sun.
Then the sound of wings come, shadows stealing lights, smothering bodies all around me. I blaze brighter; I do not flinch, even as a shadow engulfs me.
(First published in Ink Sweat and Tears: 1 May 2007)
***
Butterfly Women
Falling rain freezes and shatters on hardened skin, spreading shards of cold. The sky morphs from seraph blue to the dark red of prostitution. Black leather encases her as she huddles in shadow with hail shouting out her presence. The Collectors are out with their nets as the first night of autumn falls. The moon is already out, taking its place to watch The Unfolding.
Leather creaks as muscles stretch, preparing for the flight. Her slow ugliness is gone, the fatness of youth replaced by maturity.
She is hidden. They will not find her until she appears. The taint of her former life – gluttony and the sins of the flesh are metamorphosed. In her past she tantalised men, offering more flesh than they could cope with.
Now she is clean, a new being within her hardened skin. Memories of that life will lie discarded soon enough.
It is time – adrenaline surges in waves, each one engulfing the previous. Her fear splits like the cocoon shedding around her. She stands, multicoloured, beautiful and naked. Her wings unfold filling the night with honeyed sweat – the breeze strokes her body to dryness.
Shouts erupt from below. Bright beams highlight her nakedness. She feels no shame, no guilt – they drip off her as water onto the ground. She is free of their taint.
She jumps beneath the screech of nets. She crumples into a ball and falls. The nets entangle the cocoon above her. Suddenly, she stretches out filling the night with kaleidoscopic colours, as lights pierce translucent wings. She flies, fast, angling close to buildings, dodging nets and wires.
The stars are bright and clear in a patch of sky. There is no dust veiling them. It is a break in the glass. She aims for it. Beams crisscross the sky, lighting up many others trying for freedom.
She wonders how many of these women will find freedom from the nets of men.
(First published in Ink Sweat and Tears: 03 Apr 2007)
Stunning! I love your work, regards, Christien
Thank you