Poetry
Life and Lovers
Arlene Ang
So, you have an incandescent dread of men.
A murder of crows buzzes up your throat
when one lewd rhinoceros even winks at you.
You slave at SteakTown.
Circling tables with apron-wings,
you mascara every vain sidelong glance
of the populace-eyelash.
And in the evening
you let down your afternoon hair
along with the stench of too many cusses
trapped in your scalp.
So, you crouch in fluorescent dirt.
And you snip off corns from your feet.
The sawed-off flesh dance
on the metal of the wastebin—
Life and your many lovers.