October

Thunder-- drums in the distant
billowing curtains
a mosquito buzzing
lazy Sunday

Music Box Monologue

I got you Christmas present early. He says.
Don't cry over any broken music box anymore ok?
This one. It is unbreakable. You're going to need an axe for this one.

Cold weather

makes me think of you
and how
I should have followed you home--
let you ravage me,
because
I would rather have been cheap
than incomplete.

Broken hands

I am not destined for beautiful things
no
I break them
lose them
with my clumsy hands
clumsy heart

I am careless with fragile things
dropping
breaking

I tried once
it was a music box
on three golden legs
with gilded edges
the pink and cream profile of an English girl with blind marble eyes
I had begged again and again
for my mother to buy
she told me no
I will break it
she said, like it was a fact written in stars
I wouldn't
I wouldn't
I wouldn't

I hid it, in a place no one would find
I look at it every night
afraid for its beauty
and my cursed hands
I would not touch it
so it is nestled
under my mattress
close to my sleeping heart
I said goodbye every day before school
aching fearing
and rushed home to check on it
but my mother was right
no matter how I tried
I came home one day to find it broken in two

The mattress was clean with new sheets
my music box came apart into two
Who did it? Who did it?
I asked over and over
no one answered but blank stares

I kept the broken remains
until all that was left was the metal mechanism that played the tune
a reminder
of twisted hands

I have never believed that I can hold on to anything beautiful after
including you

Sometimes, I think
you are simply too beautiful for me
too beautiful
for broken hands

fist

The heart
is a stubborn organ
keeping its beat
day after day
after day
For what?

Ondaatje calls it the organ of fire
But it is one of stone
It has no pride
or too much
it keeps secrets tucked away the brain has forgotten

It is mined with spider webs
glisten
only in the morning light
the moths of our fancy
caught fast
throbbing, throbbing

It makes no sounds
excrete no waste
gathering everything like a waste house

And in sadness,
it only makes a single sound

It beats stubborn
clinging
to fond memories
and foolish hopes

They call it a fist


The heart
is a stubborn organ.

this hour

I
revel in this thick hour of the night
when the world like ink
dips in silence
in a well of possibilities
when the lighted window shines
like a soul exposed
and I
think
of your darkness
and wonder
how are you swimming in this witching hour
between sheets, or pages
are you traveling on dark roads
headlights turned inwards
into the heart
and I write
because that is the only place I still find you
and because
I learnt to love this minute space in between hour hands
when all is silent and
still
when even the heart shudders in the emptiness
waiting
for a sound
I think of buffalos I never saw
and the words I never said
then this silence
heavy like a blanket
so still, my heart aches.