Road's Eye View

Road's Eye View


I saw her once
presiding over the
beginning of the day,
the giant turbaned umber
goddess of morning’s sunlit web

—Banana Woman—

mountains of bananas rising behind her,
towers of bananas stacked on tables around her,
foothills of bananas sprawling out
along the market’s spider path.
She would not look up from her ledger so,
needing to make peace with my demons,
I gave my confession to her dogs.

And her dogs replied—

Let us begin with death
and the possibility of death
for this is the humid season
of atrocity and wonder
where the starting point
is fear and desire
twisted together,
inseparable vines,
the assailable heart
and the available flesh
lashed to a skeleton raft,
survivors in the carbon sea
shipwrecked in this stinking
singing swamp, ten thousand
tiny concertinas squeaking in the
buzzing, clicking, humming dark—

where are you . . . here I am . . .
here I am . . . who are you . . .
here I am . . . here I am . . .
where are you . . . who are you . . .
who are you . . . I am here . . .
who will feed my daily flesh . . .
who are you . . .
who are you . . .
I cannot sleep . . .
here I am . . .
peel back my skin and eat . . .


asha