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by Ken Turner
Sleeping with the Enemy
Kyaukhtatgyi Pagoda, Burma
They spook the country, lurk in shadowed corners,
haunt the market stalls,
even peek from the trunks of ancient trees,
almost as common
as soldiers, police, and spies. Broad-shouldered
in Bagan,
thinner in the north, they wait and watch and everywhere
they pose
uniform gestures. Seated solid as a tank,
left hand in lap,
right fingers reaching, claiming the earth:
Observe my power.
Arms raised to chest as if to hold a rifle:
Listen to me.
Upturned hands on scissored legs:
Pay attention. Awaken.
Beside a pagoda soldiers slouch in the shade,
guns slung and boots
laced tight despite the heat. One has removed his helmet
just now,
and as I pass he swivels toward me: widening eyes,
an unlined face
and hair like the crest of a small startled bird.
In the gilt-edged temple
reclines a buddha in massive sparkling indolence
with skin like milk-
washed pearl and eyes of agate glass. His lips
shine scarlet.
Propped on an elbow he rests his head on his hand:
relax
and with just a hint of caress drapes the other
along his opulent hip
as if to say hey big guy, soldier, why don't you come in
and see me some time?
When I see the soldier's face, just a boy,
my off-guard cheeks relax
—despite all I know about what happens here—
into a smile
and I wish I could say I surprised him in turn
into a grin,
even fleeting, a quick one, reflexive.
I wish I could.
What does it mean to be mindful?
I'd like to say
I saw him later on his knees, head bowed,
palms sealed
before the gleaming figure. I want to think
it's that simple.
I want to believe that he or I, any of us,
could be
shamed by a smile, snapped by surprise
into paying attention,
commanded or teased, even seduced,
into waking up.
Watching the Parade, I Think of Feng Shui
If you find yourself in a Chinese city, look up—
perforated
towers, split and slotted, seize the breeze,
funnel it through,
and if you should place a cactus on your sill,
since spines
shred air and splinter light, expect
an empty wallet
and sluggish blood—oh, and never block a door.
To course
with perfect freedom is the way of water and wind,
of blood
the way as well, to drift and surge, undo the body's
nerve-knots.
What do you think those needles are for? Once
on an Asian island
a dive dislocated me, sealed a clogged channel:
dead zone
on the right, hearing only half as if stroke-smacked,
flatfall
of sound, just hum and purr, voice short-circuited
in the skull.
Slammed shut. Next day I watched a local
festival,
origins mostly legendary (deliver us from disease,
protect
our town and help us be pure, the standard themes but
knitted new),
a vegetarian bloodletting, abstinence yoked to rich abundant
gore:
for fifteen days no meat, no sex, nothing to wear
but white
and at the end a percussive parade, firecrackers and drums,
the enthralled
in file, their cheeks and tongues, folds of muscle and skin
punctured
by needles and knives—embroidered brows and
pincushion
backs, a pageant of aching jowls skewered with
spikes—
but no chains, no frenzy, no dripping whips, just
a calm
deliberate opening of the skin, unplugging,
valve-venting,
carving fresh lips for the gods to kiss,
a carnival
of wounds wreathed in smoke and the heady musk
of sacrifice.
That night I spooned warm oil into my ear. The intricate chamber
I probed
for days, hesitant, then bolder, rougher with my cottoned
lance,
deep and insistent, skirting rupture and lasting damage, learning
to trust
pain and crave danger, until one morning round and clear
I woke
whole again—a talon had slipped to my pillow, a needle of stiffened wax
ecstatic
as a spine, as relief: the cast-off plug of a channel reopened
to wind and water.
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