Filler
Nicholas Wong
Nicholas YB Wong is the winner of Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition and a nominee for Best of the Net 2010 and Best of Web 2011 Anthology. His poetry is forthcoming in Assaracus: Journal of Gay Poetry, Prime Number Magazine, San Pedro River Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Third Wednesday, Lambda Literary Foundation and the Sentinel Champion Series. He is currently an MFA Candidate at the City University of Hong Kong.
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1.
There is always a hole
in the sky.
How can God see us otherwise?
2.
A cat
is falling.
Fragments
of memories flashing.
Caterwauls.
How else can a fallen
animal
break silence?
Rebirth.
It forgets how it dies
in its former life.
Its body turns
into a glass jug,
the blue blood inside
spills out. The world
is suddenly made
of one color.
Gold.
3.
That’s the birth of wealth.
That’s how your lips, your body are bought.
And your hole.
After shower, you say money cures
emptiness.
As if you’re born with arrhythmia.
And I look into your eyes,
now absent
of spilling desires.
Odd moments of meaning.
I wish to tell you I am paying
with money and melancholy.
4.
As for our ears.
The most promiscuous organ.
Offering no door
to each sound.
Your head slightly tilts,
exposing the left ear
in the open air.
“Hold your secrets.
Life’s too heavy.”
Then you cut it off. Life
becomes soundless lighter,
uncontaminated.
5.
The penguins are bending
to bury their babies
in the snow. Frozen
premature meat.
Flocks of parrots found
dead in Brazil.
Neck-twisted.
And the fish rushing
to shorelines.
Mouths opening,
not breathing,
bathing in spilt oil.
The planet is dying.
Even woodpeckers think
there’re too many holes.
Even so, we cannot
catch a glimpse
of God’s shadow.
© Nicholas Wong
