10-Caught in between

A nimble woman filing her nails on the Mineola train,

the curetted skies spilling inside the wide windows,

bodies harboring secrets, standing, sitting, caught up

in screen worlds that fragment reality in tinsel shreds,

luring the retina yet numbing all live cell. The lulling

of the railcar, the musty air, the sandpapery throat of

December scratching the glass, I don’t want to hear

Jamaica is next, get off to an empty apartment reeking

of orange rind and Dottera oil spills, little distractions

that abet a sort of pillage of the self, making room for

swelling voices from afar, pungent in their sting, how

does one tame the language animal dwelling in the throat,

swaddled in coarse tissue, scratching the pores, this poem

in English is but a haunted home, beam bones I have learnt

to chew on my daily commute, something deep inside has

grown hard and now it clamps the chest, limpid gelatin.