SLOW LOSS


FRAMES GROW ROOTS

bursting through

a preposition

is a banyan
what was under
is in excess of
the word garden
too full
inadvertently
when you frame
you preserve
only so much
of the past
that is pickled
the whiff
of fried fish
meant she
stretched tight
over the stairway
they left with an armful
of stained walls
the overtone
of leaves
curled up
the face of the noun


PLAYING WITH KNIVES

past and cloth
not a necessary repartee
unless
arranged
like slow
deliberate gashes
that which isn't
becomes the red sofa
we left behind
our new neighbours
stay the plastic wrap
fabric makes me think
of fable
no animals here
but a clatter
of knives whetted
on blunt wish
blind alleys and exposed bricks
for dinner


CASUAL LEAVE

what if the moment of passage
be a flac file loss less; paper
like brittle feathers in her cap
thick trail of a movement___out
who will come wading a paper sea
will ride a slow horse time
here, the light bends over melon slippers
why do laugh lines
walk___________________ to a picture?
you would think the history of a smile
is an area of a cupboard face
every tilt of the sun passes through
_______________________ a heady corridor
a walk is a pause in clockwork
the present______________ is an orange leap


SHADE CARD

the colour of our memory
my mother's and mine
isn't spray paint
the floor is never yellow
therefore; our competing greens
are so far apart as
molars on each side
of the mouth shredded
by a grimace. she sniggers
when i say green door
because what is behind
isn't a shaking song
I should say, perhaps
lola red and see
the chinese porcelain
come tumbling out
of her cupboard
just as her casual
'exposed wires'
is a man on a footboard
head split
in a direction away
from where the train proceeds


FABRICATION

I have a game
up the balustrade
here up is not positional
a precise light
in the eye rather
composing accretion
along a straight line
for Zakir, handrail
at hundred bucks a day
rosewood; under
is beyond exposure
but you can push
till your muscles
draw focal sense; stop
where the crows fly out
topside down black boats
stiff paper was cut
along the length
all the dollhouses gaily
still it doesn't appear
as if handcrafts
have anything to say
about erosion or
falling stars. we should
have brought the banister
to our new home
to remember there was
a downstairs to our past

-Aria Abraham


Back