They went out tonight, to take a passport photograph of the two
but returned empty, after a dinner of nasi goreng kampung at the ‘Green Apple’,
whilst I here, after a long, hot afternoon of science, try to grapple
with writing that kept on refusing time and again to go through.
To Encik Azlie, the pharmacist, there to enquire
about Germacourt, that might cause skin infection to take time out and pause,
a pack of one hundred pcs of pus-absorbing, neutral and emotionless gauze,
plus Essentiale, and a vitamin supplement, neither of which I asked for, nor require.
With small girl’s help, I put cling-film over the lettuce and cucumber, then place
in the fridge for tomorrow, without the suffering of yellow-leaf hepatitis
or an outbreak of some obscure ice-carrying gastroenteritis
cutting away the interior of the gut, tight in embrace.
A wholesome hole above my ankle, where three months ago,
a careless spouse kicked me, turning in the early hours of the morning, hard and curt,
a post-Achilles tendon operation giving birth to stiffness and hurt,
to begin an era of excreting pus in gauze with no blood flow.
The boy shows a clinical interest, rather in the way an executioner might regard the prey;
a cold, dispassionate analysis, followed by a brusque assertion, that began to imply
that he might, with grasping and squeeze-powering hands, like to try…
‘Hum, looks bad, you must clean the yellow, let me help you.’ No way.
