The Reader

            i.

A house gecko
hangs upside down
on the fluorescent
bulb of my desk lamp:
under lucid flesh,
breathing heart,
the stay of the spine,
amazing intestines.
By lamplight, I
the unflinching gecko.

            ii.

In the crook of a trail,
a blue heron stands,
one ligneous foot in the stream.
A quicksilver fish
slides down his throat.
The plume on his head quivers.
The stream mends itself.
His foot, again, as root.

Sated, I cross the bridge.

            iii.

I walk toward the low of fog horns
and the swivel of light house beams:

                  ...warn you...
                        …come to me...
              ...warn you...

            iv.

A snail's underside ripples
up the glass door
to rooftop scents rarefied
beyond my ken.

            v.

Under marjoram brush,
sudden mushrooms
rise above wood chips,
flags for detritus unseen.

            vi.

Tomatoes on untrained vines
dwell close to warm ground,
swollen with the sun’s musk.

            vii.

In morning mist,
dew-drenched cobwebs
between car window and side mirror.

I too have built in the comfort of corners,
and what appears stationary.

            viii.

Frogs on summer leaves.

My dear friend, who passed last summer,
taught me:

frog   kaeru
return   kaeru

Tell me how to read frogs on summer leaves.






Click here to listen to Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong reading "The Reader"






Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong lives in California, where she works as a mother and a software developer. She writes primarily in English, but hopes to use javascript, html, and other web languages to create interactive poetry and prose in the near future. “The Reader” is part of her book-length poetry manuscript, Ravel. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in California Quarterly, Crab Orchard Review, CV2 (Canada), Drunken Boat, Nimrod, Runes, and Spillways, as well as various anthologies, including Turning a Train of Thought Upside Down.