What the Magpie Stole
Blue hair, over there
invokes the image of an imperfect
Joker
any Official Batman Fanatic would know
and love
or loathe
but that can’t matter now,
not at the 27 bus stop/
the Rupert Skytrain station.
Did I tell you
I am
the accumulation of everyone
I’ve ever encountered:
a lifetime
of frozen dinner stains on plaid shirts
and pills tucked away in designer bags from Pair-eee
(you must say it the way any first-rate Yuppie would, please)
and grey smoky ancient back alley ways
and pathetic wines
and twisted accents lilting past lacy cheeks—
lost buttons
sneaky lullabies
gloved fingers—all this
and more.
You must
know
I am convinced that floor is
crooked
but
you wouldn’t notice
because the man desperately drinking last dregs from
empty
beer bottles;
the same
man who tried to sell cigarettes
to a teenager shielded by earphones
the same
man sitting
diagonally
across from me
on this train
is much more important than a
crooked
ground.
Now I can only think of
aged Asian women dou-
bled
over from history
with their fractured english
trading (empty) cans and bottles
for a dollar twenty
give or take.
What could you do with that change?
Maybe in twenty score years
of accumulation
you could
buy a rocket,
a robot,
a kiss…
or a scrawly drawing
like the one I found on the bus
today
wrinkled and marked
by a child learning to trace his (or her)
hands.
Which makes me think about
your
fine, precise artisan hands
tracing the graft of new skin you placed just
below
the base of my neck
and I have to shudder
from the way your fingers
never
paw or grapple
but slide across that skin.
Did you ever imagine if you could taste
on my lips
the coffee from the cup in my elven faerie hands
(angel hands, says another):
beans soaked in Arabian sun and wind;
I remember the time
you were drinking
Snapple Peach Iced Tea
(my favourite drink by the by)
and I couldn’t help
but wonder if
I kissed you
whether you’d taste like peach blossoms.
I’ll try not to
stare
at your damask eyes
as long as you remember
that I am a
haphazard
non-
sensical jig-
saw
made of pieces from
other puzzles
jammed into places
where
nothing
belongs but fits nevertheless.
I am a
take-a-penny-leave-a-penny jar
and you are carrying a part of me
on that plane to Germany.
Don’t lose it.
I would never lose
the piece you’ve
left behind.
© Caroline Cheng, 2008
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