.................................
many mouths of the mekong
.................................

i could barely think above the roar
of the hydrofoil's engine as we pushed downriver
except to wonder if the mekong could taste
our departure and lament
that rivers never flow far enough east
entering the sea,
i recalled never ever having seen a morning sun so
low and orange

 
.................................
dry, my butterfly.
and preservation of fascist poesies
.................................

newly dead and dying things
are easy to pin spreadwing
without risk of tearing
or exoskeleton breaking

flowers and grasses
should be bound by their stems
hung upside down with
their faces turned to
my insects below the glass

 
.................................
the ramble of the bodybags-should-be-orange-wish
.................................

they call the rock in the museum store
    "buddha with his face in his hands"
he's curled over his knees
it's just a rock and i don't buy it

but, today, i assume the same position on the floor
  knees to chest, legs under torso,
   tipped forward,
         an "s" with
        elbows pressed into carpet
  so close to what i'm writing
     i can smell my skin and ink
 
smells so much cleaner
than a physician's right hand on my face
his palm over my nose
and i'm breathing onto his hot skin
   while he describes my eyescape
    "an anomaly with a feathered edge"

and i assume this position, too
 holding things close to my eyes
                   are there really wings here?
hoping the twist of the two will make it difficult
for the zipper to connect its teeth
i feel it's up already
   between my feet and my knees

just think, when i'm waving to you
      i'm just reading for airholes
i'm dragging my fingers across my breath,
the condensation on a barrier
between me and the orange blur
of poppies along the highway

condensation of this morning
 on those petals
        would be dew

 
.................................
at the car show
.................................

        the top of a crack was
        just above the belt loop
        on a loose pair of jeans
        i wouldn't have noticed it
        if not for a small green tattoo
        in the small of his back
        it was an arrow pointing
        down to that crack
        of a shirtless hairless guy

the guy passed his pink baby girl
over to shannon, a blond and braless madonna
who
saw me looking
at the tattoo
she smirked under that nose ring
and said to me
        ching chong ching
        hop sing hop sing
        chinky chonky ching

i whispered
        walk kareema sin
        gwai low puta girl
        bruha puta you

she said
        WHAT the F did you SAY
        chinky chong ching?

i whispered
        ching chong ching
        hop sing hop sing
        chinky chonky ching

put my hands together
        my head down

her tattooed man of the hour
smacked her
a hard one
with his hand and tattooed rings
on the back of her head
and sent her yellow hair
in sprays over her face
he said

        what the F do you think you are doing?!
        you act like this in front of my baby girl?!

he took the baby and left
for a while

later, i saw them
         a threesome again
looking at a vw bus stretched into a limo
the baby was sucking her thumb

that crack still peeked out to say hello

 
.................................
the journeyman and the flighty girl
in concentric spirals to meet offcenter
.................................

Stay awhile where you are.
Kick your heels on my door,
Your feet wending for road,
Thumbs ready for the ride--
Half-wired drive through rain.
And you, tall fenbound man,
Tilt the brittle kingpost
For my sky's gray-sag-thrust.
As I mend star-knocked larks,
Limners in limmer swamps,
(Love is not done here, see.)
Stay awhile away from me.

 
.................................
burglar
.................................

i know
you don't dream in my language
you even open your eyes
meet mine straight on
but unusually deep creases
in your usually foldless
lids tell me
you are not awake
then you do that homeland-
sleeping-tongue-talk
thing i don't understand

hold my breath
and i'm this flanneled intruder
happening on you
and you're happening on someone
in your sleep
   i don't move
hoping to hear my name
called out from your dream

but you yell
and there's just one word in english

it is close enough

.................................
Danielle C. Le
.................................

 
Copyright © Danielle C. Le
January 1999

...a poem in this room by Gale Bria Hung...
candy
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