Prime Time
Kristine Ong Muslim

     

This little boy loves the lost.
This little boy loses his shoe,
and his left toe is pried off
by fingers that have once
curled around the trigger.

The colonel rigs the machine
which will pluck and sever voices
in mid-scream. Little boy
misreads a fragment of history,
sees every thing from the point
of view of the conquerors.

Pollen.
Dust.
Breath.
Soot.

Little boy takes a prescription
for passion, hides dirty books
in the box under the bed.
There's the mourning of oaks
again; the light intrudes in the
spaces between the branches.

Little boy lurches in the coldness
of his glass mold bought by his
parents through the internet.

One who loves silences between
strangers fills the room empty.
Outside, so beautiful, so dead—
the balloon man, mascot of the next
generation, floats, taps on his window.

 

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