laps

when dalliance returns, the one after the other, dallying
while dallying     who'll

for the token night gathers its pools
pool a woman carrying children into
citronella gathers to its pools a whistle, sailing

night arrow across the track's prepared
burnishment of absorbing the election's
sweat through to the presidential election's absorbing
the porous rubber collects,

becoming the racetrack, pinned there
inhaling a sterile water,

in ballooned and extinguishing colonies evenly,
creating a sugar-burn of esophagus crackling
like this: chlorine; forest fire. chlorine;
forest fire.

breathing pools. chlorine cohabits
in a form of malaysia through the opening vessel.
fires for the palm through this opening.

as that happens could you both sit and easily drink,
flicking cards up to snapping light, red horses rearing
and crackling mosquitoes. for us going round the fence's

mosquito death one two one two.
or to the light to mosquito oneoneoneone two.
to one. one.            one one.

the colour of smoke from cross-border fires hanging in remaining canopy, not like
the colour of a dust storm rising over the airport, not like
the colour inside the glass smoking box inside the airport - not air. presses itself against the glass, people moving in there.

Yang Zi

at conjunctions

at in translation

at pn review

"time really files"

Dear Doctor,

I cannot have a baby. You know there is a programme now where they offer us a housing upgrade, and because we are both graduates and employed they give money for a wetnurse. So yes, the conditions are right and my husband is supportive. My supervisor has been encouraging me to attend the Growing Families meetings, and makes sure I have time off to do this. At the meetings the leader talks about work-life balance, and in the background there are slides of couples relaxing. In the break-out groups I try to relax with the other women, and I see they are trying to do the same. We participate in the games and the brainstorming on ways to celebrate family, but there are often silences in these discussions; I suppose people are shy.

Last week one of my Growing Families colleagues announced she was leaving the group because she and her husband had been successful. She is the first, and we celebrated with a song. It was to the tune of happy birthday, but they had new lyrics printed out for us to sing. Not everyone looked happy, but I am sure this will just be the first of many.

My husband and I keep a schedule, but nothing has happened inside me and nothing will. But how can I be ethical now? Must I tell my husband the true situation? My group leader? My supervisor? I am sure you appreciate the risks. Again, I appreciate your advice.

She carried a basketful of hair to her grandfather's cottage, which stood deep in the forest on does' legs, twelve of them. The legs trembled as she approached, picking up her grandfather's unease.
"Easy," he cautioned the legs from his doorstep perch. "Easy, Physics, easy, Cthonics. Easy Rhetorics and Placement." But still the house lurched to one side as a few knees buckled, then straightened themselves.

"Grandfather," called Floss from among the fir trees, "my mother has sent something for you."

"Stand back, Flossie, you are frightening my house. What do you have in that basket?"

"Grandfather, Mother has sent you a basketful of hair. From our side of the forest we can hear the wind moan through the crevices of your house. We can hear the wind whistle over the plain of your head, and we hear your knees knock and your teeth chatter. Mother knows you are too proud to take hair from the legs of your house, so she is sending you this basket of her own."

"My own daughter's hair? Perversion! Begone!"

"Forgive me Grandfather, I mistold it. This is not my mother's hair, but the hair of our buffalo, which rolls and ruts in the fields. Mother combed it from his shanks when he was lonely in the night."

Grandfather hummed and stroked the lintel for a while, calming himself. "Is he a noble buffalo?" he eventually asked.

"Quite a noble buffalo," said Flossie.

Her grandfather beckoned her with one hand, holding the other up to slow her down, and Floss gradually crept closer to the house. The house shuddered and stamped at the smell of the buffalo - or perhaps it was at the smell of young Flossie herself.

When Flossie was close enough Grandfather bid her climb up on the doorstep, and together they looked at the basket of hair. It was thick, complex and odiferous, though well combed.

"This is fine hair," said Grandfather. He reached into the basket and felt the sheaves of coarse, silky fibre, its thick clumps and fine strands. His granddaughter leaned herself against the doorframe and began to hum, as a sleepiness came over him.

How he loved his granddaughter, sitting there staring out into the woods, her fingers digging at the gaps in the floorboards. He had not been good to her mother, he recalled, but they had both had faces that promised so much.

Just then the trees gave a sudden shudder and shriek, and the house tottered slightly to the east. An icy gust passed through the cracks in the walls. Flossy shivered and stuck her hands into her pockets, but her grandfather leaped into the air.

"Ha! I won't be fooled. You and your mother, trying to make me old, trying to put me to sleep. You want to come in here with your basket of softness and steal my dignity. See this?" He turned his back to her and arched it, so his spine stood out like a blade.

"This spine cuts the wind in two, leaves it in shreds on this very floor. And every time it cuts the wind, the wind sharpens it, whets my bones to an edge that howls so the devil knows what he'll meet.

The little girl sprung up from where she sat amongst the shreds of wind.

"Grandfather, what about your neck? You are now a completely hairless old man, and surely the wrinkles around your neck and ears must long for protection and warmth? My mother has taught me how to knit, Grandfather, and I could sit here at your feet --"

Dear Doctor,

I don't know if you'll remember me but maybe you will remember my dear wife Maria, Maria with the dark brown eyes that look like melted chocolates, and hair as shiny as a light. We came to see you years ago now - 18 years ago and two months to be exact! Which was when my dear wife Maria and I were having a bit of trouble after our baby and she thought that it would help us to get an opinion.

Well, so we did and it wasn't easy everything was okay in the end. I thought you would like to know that our boy Jack has gone off to university now and he has turned eighteen and he is very happy, sports science, great stuff, and maybe you can give yourself a pat on the back that he is such a happy young guy without a shadow, and not the child of an unhappy divorce.

What was it all about, you might ask? Well, it was something from when Maria and me were teenagers, and maybe her mother or her friends had put her wrong and told her she shouldn't just be with one fella from the beginning right through, and so she wanted to have a break and try out something else. "Something else" you may remember was a social at her friend's church (a church we didn't even go to), and it was with "someone else", which you may remember was Derrick Carter from Highgate, who she even admitted that she didn't like that much, she didn't feel like kissing him afterwards, but she went anyway.

Well, we tried to put all that behind us, they didn't even kiss, but a few years later when she had the baby, because she was so sad, I had a lot of reminders of what she had done. And I wondered a lot if that was Derrick Carter playing with her mind and making her sad. Or if she didn't like him that much then maybe it was all the other fellas she saw at the social making her think of different things and be wishful.

But Doc, you probably remember it all now and how you put my head straight without too much trouble at all. A wave of your fingers. And so now it's eighteen years and I wanted to let you know that I haven't even mentioned it at all for all that time, and I have hardly even thought about it very much, and because of you if our boy Jack heard the name "Derrick Carter" he wouldn't have any clue who that was. And Maria was as you might guess, an absolutely smashing mum, I should say still is, and mostly not sad.

So thanks Doc. Another happy ending. But you probably get a lot.