Eileen Tabios
ertabios@aol.com
CODA
FROM THE HEDGE FUND
That taste of iron
under your tongue
became familiar to me
*
The mirror never reflects
poison
only its corrosive expansion
*
Hearing is visually stimulated
(according to neuroscientists)—
a plummeting line
slashing across the computer screen
equals the sound of beaten metal
being beaten, beaten, beaten …
*
I had sang to you
with zero sincerity
*
I plucked words
from your language
only to denote meals
destined for my mouth
indifferent
even as it chewed
and chewed and chewed
*
I courted humans whose
Height
Cheekbones
Waists
Thighs
Ankles
befitted the contents of my wardrobe
curated by Uncle’s British butler
Must writing a Poem
be so painful?
*
Story of my inherited life:
zero climax…
*
Anguish
provides its own momentum
*
A wealthy father
can exist
A wealthy uncle? Never
The wealthy never
underestimate
lineage
*
Caged animals—
Daniel Quinn rightly observes
in his novel Ishmael—
are more thoughtful
than animals in the wild
The tiger pacing
wildly within a cage
understands its life
-style is wrong
Pacing, the tiger asks pleads
Why, Why,
Why…?
until felled by a “final lethargy”
zookeepers recognize as
a rejection of life
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