A Foisted Stone. Cast
Dragon fruit flesh stains
The fingers with a fuchsia tattoo.
A temporary birthmark, confused.
A stain that cleanses;
Washes away the bitter with the sweet.
Flesh of my flesh
The body
A limited, liminal vessel for such a multitude
Of thoughts, memories, experiences,
Migratory birds that never get lost
And circle the lake of consciousness
Like an oscillating moon.
Somehow timed never to see the sun’s light
But lie blinded in pitch
A consolating, warm blanket of blackness.
The morning light moors the spinning wheels
To the tar road, a strange axis
Across a landscape connecting town to town.
We ride, we spin, we design these games
To place their rules into tiny matchboxes.
Buried in the back garden by a child and forgotten.
Men ride with women passengers.
Slowly and neatly in a line.
Single file. The buses and trucks with their clouds of
Smoke these whipped-up tricks from a poor magician.
One man holds a shiny metal tiffin.
The local lunchbox.
Made with the love of his wife, by a stranger, or both.
Inside an empty vessel the food that sustains
Him keeps his heart beating and his mind clear
His body strong
The reason for his existence inside that circular steel dome.
A glint of light blinds me as I ride past
Shooting forth, my Damascus moment
Seeing, feeling, tasting the morsels of the wife’s food.
A long black strand of hair
Recently nourished by coconut.
The thin twig fallen from the Tree of Knowledge
To eat that which should never be eaten.
Beneath the warm helmet, I smile, riding by,
He coughs.
While she sits still on a stool gazing outside
As the world rushes by, alone, dreaming of how
She used to dance.
Now moved only by the indigestion of lost time.