Prose

There is garbage outside the gas station. A single mound of used furniture. A love seat, mildewed with blotchy stains. A foldable table, its missing leg ten yards away. The attendant’s wife is walking around with a gigantic tarpaulin bag, half-filled with things. Her daughter is seated on the pavement, reading The Cappuccino Years by Sue Townsend. A jukebox even, its glass smashed in, and round plates in neat piles. The attendant is looking over this mess, his cigarette dangling from two fingers at the side of his hip. As if he’s contemplating setting it all on fire, and watching the ambers glow in the night. Tonight’s sky will be cast in an orange hue, or so the weatherman said. The colours will walk into each other, no more different than one thought writing itself into the next, one abandoned to issue an awakening. The scroll is crisply burning, as is the painting of Xiamen and its port of 14th century merchants.


* This is a reprint. The poem first appeared in the literary journal "Grey Sparrow".