Portrait — Part III
Poem
It’s fate.
There’s nothing to grasp —
but worn air of a
future
lapsing.
It’s how we mitigate,
how we squelch to years,
minutes
and the hour.
It was the drag of the sarong,
the snare of a toe,
then a cresting,
forward, over,
and the fattening of the moment —
the tumult of extremities,
outcry and
hard surfaces,
and the crackle.
It was fated,
the ache of centuries pinched
to fever
and a decade,
the hope of a people ferried
to brink,
a future wrenched unseason,
and fratricidal rush —
afterbirth.
The floor dispersed;
the world tumbled,
her father coiling in the flame,
the heads absent faces,
the keen grinds of bellies,
days neither come nor pass;
the air was unmoved in the drop
as she met ground —
at three months.
next: Portrait – Part IV
previous: Portrait — Part II
more by JUN HUA EA
photograph by JUN HUA EA
