tell me about it

Silence is served

dished up in little trays
of tea and tiramisu
bittersweet treats that
lie untouched
left uneaten
yet tried, and tested
revealing a tangy trace
of tell-tale tangerine
a teaspoon of tangibility
tart on the tongue

leaving an aftertaste
of love and a lemon twist

Copyright J. Pan 1999

A Chinese mother won’t say
“I love you”. She can’t.
Something in her head
doesn’t work that way.

She’ll say it, then, with bread
Hot paus in the steamer
timed just so they’re done
As you roll out of bed

Bowls of vile herbal brews: “There,
the blackest one is for you.”
Pinching your nose, you gulp
the foul mess down.

she’ll pretend not to care

but you know that beneath
her shuttered lids and busily
working hands, she’s checking
that you drank every drop.

Copyright J. Pan 2004

1.
Saturday mornings at the market,
Mother always scolded me -
I never picked the right fruits.
And so she taught me
to hold them in my palm
to feel their solid weight,
the heavier, the better.
To sniff them at the stem:
“See? This one
isn’t sweet.” Color
was equally important.
We prodded the fruits
into submission,
testing for firmness.
My hand was smacked
for poking too hard.

2.
You are like soft brown fruit
heavy with the dusty smell of summer.
And I, I want to devour you
I want to make a meal of your neck
I want to press you to my lips
and drink you, taste you
a burst of ripe flavor
against my tongue.

3.
How succulent the flesh, how far
Man fell in that fateful second.

4.
She was almost ripe, as young girls are
full to bursting, and then some.
She was stubborn. She refused to be picked,
and fell from the branch before her time
hitting the ground and splitting open
with a dull smack. Hornets came to feast
buzzing crazily on her sour-sweetness
the skin, the meat, so soft
all of it, down to the heart.
Drunk dry, she rotted quietly, certainly, away.

5.
When his mother asked
which fruit he would like,
he knew it wasn’t a culinary preference
she referred to -
and so he was tempted to say,
“I prefer fruits like myself” -
but he wisely refrained
and took the diplomatic route:
he told his mother
(with a hint of regret)
that he’d take bananas over peaches
any day.

Copyright J. Pan 2003

We two stood
at the edge of the lake. I rested
my body against yours. We fit
comfortably – after all,
I was made from you.

You wrapped my fingers
around the flattest stone
you could find; you couldn’t believe
I didn’t know how to skip them
across the surface.

And so I tossed it – there,
one skip, two – then a splash!
I screamed, something leaped out
and snapped the stone up, gobblegulp.

Shaken, we laughed. Maybe that’s why
I’ve never skipped stones, Dad;
you never know
what’s lurking beneath the water.

I suppose I’m afraid –
even if I just skim the surface
I might be startled by things
that I don’t want to know.

Copyright J. Pan 2000

She only wears black.

Her body is impossibly thin.
She lives on the scanty diet
of rebellion and teen angst,
writing bad poetry
about death (O cruel world!)
and love, anguished and
unrequited; heartbreak
is an especially favorite topic.

Her nose is pierced. Like a bull,
her mother says in distaste,
privately wishing
that it would (like a bull)
make her more tractable.

It doesn’t.

She uses Valium and a push-up bra –
but neither does much to lift
her spirits or her breasts.

Copyright J. Pan 2002

i am your desert island

you sit on my shore and sigh in my heat
as scorch lines scar your inner thighs
coconut water drips from the corner of your mouth
i yearn to kiss it away, but i
am dunes of sand and a coconut palm
and you are oblivious to all
but the burning sun on your whipmarked back

and the hot sand on your tender flesh.

Copyright J. Pan 1998

it slips through the wasp-waist
running through your fingers with a laugh
come, catch me if you can!
but the grains disappear as they fall
and Time sneers as you scrabble for his sand

Copyright J. Pan 1998

1. Prelude
Softly they slide, sun-warmed, butter-soft
rhythm and melody like suede on skin. Lost
in sunlit reveries and whispered notes
that soothe and smooth the heart, like silk
new-spun and languorous, long, sweetly they sing
of lovers’ trysts and sundial dreams
under the faint sweet stars
and the platinum grin of the crescent moon.

2. The Blue Danube
She waltzes. She is the very picture of romance
atop her walnut stand. Men have died for such as her
(the tin soldier, the jack-in-the-box)
her palm is lifted skyward, as is the perfect leg
that turns the perfect pirouette. Her eyes
never waver, never miss her reflection
as she passes it with each turn
and death after little death
she waltzes again.

3. Requiem
We are fragile. We speak
of little nothings and of everything unimportant
in the nakedness of borrowed silence. Here,
a comment; there, a question; phrased awkwardly
as only an old lover knows how. Elevator music
fills in the background, its tinny tones
trite, yet telling – and they grow cold, as it were
sitting silently over tea and tiramisu,
cake and cappuccino.

Copyright J. Pan 1998

it lay soiled and discarded
thrown there in petulance
chipped cheeks, a fixed gaze
watching unperturbed
almost unnerving in its naivete
weathering each night,
some curious crows and the
odd cockroach
disintegrating over the days
until what was left
was little better than a
hank of wool and a glass eyeball
staring serenely up
ever fixed on the vertical horizon

Copyright J. Pan 2003

Intense, the artist doesn’t notice
as I peer over her shoulder, nosy.
Her sketchbook is worn and creased
and her hand flicks quickly over it.

Faces and buildings are dusted in carbon
strewn across the paper in
a furious hodgepodge of sketches.
Impressive, how she knew to look for
the way the brick crumbled just so;
how she caught
that almost imperceptible smile
the artlessness of a child
conveyed in artful strokes
quickening
like my heartbeat in my ears

She sighs. I sigh, in sympathy
for the dilemma she faces

Her hand hovers over the page
and she wonders what next to draw
(as do I) –
a portrait? A rough sketch?
Her own conclusions, perhaps,
or the bits between the lines.

Copyright J. Pan 1998