Pulse

This is the bed that makes you a family.
This is the woman you have chosen, her chest
softly tidal in sleep. This is your door ajar,
like parted lips, so as not to wake her or your son,
such are the hushed kindnesses
of the family that makes its bed. This is the length
of your street, houses crouching in the dark.
This is your engine gnawing at the silence
as if nourished by it. This is the melted sky,
bruised colour of streets, colour
of how the world continuously begins,
cloaked and uncloaked by darkness.
This is your car left to crouch by the houses.
This is you running, a hushed kindness
blooming between your palms. These are your fingers
working barrel and trigger, the streetlamps
on fire, singing gunmetal. This is
the melted sky colouring
over the pavement. As the world begins
these are the ones you have chosen, female or male,
pigtailed or unkempt, genteel or voluptuous or mercenary
or kind, school-going or employed,
wisecrack or aphorism, this the colour
of parted lips, of families arriving to make their beds.

By Jerrold Yam

QLRS Vol. 15 No. 4 Oct 2016