Robin York © 2007 All Rights Reserved
Robin York © 2007 All Rights Reserved
(fear) of being watched
the grocery list has X marks all over like eyes.
someone’s been looking for you under an assumed name.
it’s hard not to read the dear fashionable repairman note on your fridge.
when you’re out of milk, you experiment on animals.
the gorilla suit comes in several cotton-candy colors.
like a multiple personality, you lowlight the worse parts of your hair.
the effect is cinematic and rembrandt-familiar at the same time.
the bus driver keeps tapping his watch as if he’s really looking at you.
much of your childhood was spent touching your face to check for nosebleed.
menarche means to paint a woman’s face in the mirror.
reflection makes peanut butter stick to the roof of your mouth.
you’re so thin, they say, it’s hard to imagine you’re actually still there.***
Tessa Fishes in Her Backpack for a Banana
She thinks of it
as a summons, the way
heroines are blindfolded
before battle. Hunger
is a delayed flight to Cardiff,
vile weather, a toothbrush
with worn bristles.
In her hand, the fruit lies
overripe and bruised.
This isn’t the first time she thinks
of skin as yellow death,
a country on the brink
of war. She closes
her eyes—the airport wedges
itself between her lashes,
like shrapnel.
Arlene Ang lives in Spinea, Italy. Her poetry has been published in In Posse Review, Magma and Six Little Things. She is the recipient of the 2006 Frogmore Poetry Prize and serves as a poetry editor for the Pedestal Magazine and Press 1. Website: www.leafscape.org/aang