Poetry
Prachuap Khiri Khan
On the walk to Hasu Gyoza, sun
Flaring over wires, above the
Irrelevance of a church spire, concrete wall
Sun-blackened by striations, I’m thinking of
Where books are made flesh.
Venerated old women rest in plastic chairs.
The tropic day’s end steams into dark.
A mother showers her daughter
With a hose, prepubescent bare chest,
Hands on hips, unbrazen,
Unashamed. Am I Gauguin
Stumbling on an arrondissement of orientalist bodyness?
Manhattan hubris has nothing to do with
This fishing village.
The aunt of the Catholic schoolteacher
Who lives alone in a pitch-roofed house
Behind the apartment complex
Roasts bananas on a sidewalk grill.
What do I know of such relations?
Is the protocol to don velvet slippers when
The hongnaam is flooded? Is the novel as
Central as soi dogs lying abed in this field?
Richard Oyama
Richard Oyama’s work has appeared in Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry, The Nuyorasian Anthology, Breaking Silence, Dissident Song, A Gift of Tongues, About Place, Konch Magazine, Pirene’s Fountain, Buddhist Poetry Review and other journals. He has an M.A. in English: Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Oyama taught at California College of Arts in Oakland, University of California at Berkeley and University of New Mexico.