2008-10-12 - 7:20 p.m.
Adopted Son
Ladling him into the bathLaundering by hand his body
I hold on; gentle wash.
Crouched over him,
Crust of ore around
Some precious metal,
The elements of us
Show their differences:
The hair-hooks that
Tattoo my skin my age,
The lint on his
That clings to water’s
Blithely naked covering
Of nakedness;
His doubly haloed lids,
My spartan singles; the size
Of our gaze – the ease
He reads larger for largesse
Of a present comfort
While by trained instinct
I suspect the first modest
Presence that purposed intimacy;
His foot kicks up at my privates.
My penis two shades darker.
If he can ask now
How he belongs to me,
I might stay silent.
Or say, we are two shards
Broken from the same glass.
Or I may not use metaphors.
Or answer him as he
Approached me - with a limb
Over my lowered parts.
The water will be absent of shatters.
* ‘I will not’ she answered, ‘not speak.’
After I showed her my first draft.
‘And stop the poetry, you are talking about
A life you owe honesty to here.
I’d rather the reading of race
As voluble articulation,
Why he is not Chinese.
Later, if it does not matter, why.’
I thought of the crude precision of race,
Of the philosopher who ‘hardly possessed such a thing’,
Of the writer who struggles with and through
A language of hidden dissolutions.
I thought of how language ties my hands
Before I write,
How without words my hands are tied.
I thought of a poet friend who
Lies through his poetry,
Because it’s our only truth,
Because it is a fistful of gunpowder
That lacerates those who think they possess it,
Those it intends,
Those that surrounds.
* Remember the dugong,
the siren of the seas,
and the manatee
(not strictly marine
- freshwater remains one
necessary consideration-
yet a siren nonetheless)
with a different tail
resembling a tambourine
drumhead slapping
the waters for movement
or secretive music?
Both bearing lumberous
noses longer in some
than others, both cousins
to elephants though
skin and shape offers few
other semblances to
suggest they branch closely
on a family tree
like us, a little,
your lashes so much
longer than mine;
otherwise indistinguishable
you and I, my little genus.
You roll your eyes,
genius, you will say, genie-us,
no Singlish in the house,
and slap my hand.
Why Sirenia, you might ask,
For a song as clear and deep
as the waters are not,
a beautiful bluff
that sailors ride towards,
we belong together
taken for their journey’s
home song, till they squander
ship and safety upon it.
Sea cows for mer-singers,
not your mistake, though
I bet they do, an unspoken
acoustic, humming
home songs in their ears,
& unlike the sailors
these secret-keepers attune
the likeness of the call
from their resonant
fusiforms, note from
wayward note, the beckoning
from their bodies, their
belonging together…
Nod, hush now, as I do.
