Ha Kiet Chau

Mystery Blonde
 
A glint of gold ash and autumn corn bread,
I shift through memories of a mystery blonde
With dampened hair from the zigzag of rain,
Dotting windshields, in and out of focus.
Small wet droplets sagging on the
Tips of her tresses, each wispy strand,
Lustrous yellow wheat and mustard.
A swish of rain charges down the rooftop of a
Jaguar whooshing against the drum of rain.
A tattered suitcase slants on her nylon knee.
 
A sharp right turn of her pretty face.
She looks out the car window.
Screeching wheels, fast headlights, slow stop signs.
The curl of her lashes, a release of reckless tears.
The last evidence of moonlight on a rearview mirror,
Illuminating a sleepy Manhattan drive.
From 5th Avenue to the corner of Washington Square,
I don’t tell her I can stop the rain from hurting,
From cracking into a thousand pieces.
 
She elbows at a gas station, I’ll get off here.
A blur and a bland see ya later, off she runs,
Swinging her hips left to right, side to side,
An hourglass figure lost in the craze of rain.
The apparition of a fleeing blonde enigma
Taking refuge in a coffeehouse,
Beckoning me to sit and wait with her until dawn.
A stir of chai latte, we make small talk.
She’s hitchhiking to California.
 
A terrible cliché, blonde and west coast sun.
I order the darkest chocolate brownie.
The city is deprived of sunlight if you leave.
I tap my fingers on hard surface, on hard rain.
Your suitcase is still in my car.
Lightning grumbles, a spin of a coin on the table,
Heads or tails, a golden glint in her eye.
I stutter, I trip over words.
Stay a week longer, all this rain, all this melancholia.
The city weeps for a dose of sunlight.
A spoon of blonde remedy.
 
 
 
 
A Taste of Permanence
 
I want a taste of permanence.
Not so fast, I’m in no hurry to run my lips over it.
These confessions I reiterate to everyone but you.
I’m incapable of loving anything short term.
I’m not a fan of adaptations that finish without an end.
I don’t like tugging on the strings of summer,
Yanked in by the ropes of autumn.
 
You are a lover of seasons and everything decadent.
Chocolate dipped in sex, in time, in vintage merlot.
I’m bad at playing hide and seek.
How terrifying it is to love an emotion
That beats, that challenges, that runs off.
There comes a time when we make up our minds to
Quit searching for things in transition mode.
 
I’m a keeper of snapshots belonging in two piles,
The past and the present.
Because I need digital proof we are progressing
To the bang of something real.
Without pictures, truth is, you and me,
We develop into randomness with
No narrative, no origin; we fade to black.
In all probability, we never happened.
 
Maybe we come with an expiration date,
A period of cheap talk and bad dialogue.
How terrifying it is to love an emotion
That beats, that challenges, that runs off.
Can you teach me how to love
An avocado tree after it’s chopped down?
Can you teach me how to love
A ranch bungalow after it’s burnt to a crisp?
 
We can be long term inhabitants of something
Bigger than ourselves and we don’t know it yet.
When you look into my eyes longer than what I’m used to,
I wonder what exactly it is you’re looking for.
This scenario I’m capable of appreciating,
For when there is no light,
Electricity is not hard to generate with just one glance.
It is not at all a passing in time.
 



Ha Kiet Chau is a poet and freelance writer. Her writings have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, Asia Literary Review, Yellow Medicine Review, Zaum, Everyday Other Things, Stone Highway Review, and many others. She was nominated for the Best New Poets anthology of 2011 and is now working on a collection of verse. Ha teaches art and literature in San Francisco. Her Poetry Blog http://hapoetryblog.tumblr.com/




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