On starfish
By Helen Hui
I dreamt of a starfish, fossilized
Chalk
Pimples of high school but no pimple patches
Next to coffee, cold
brew I think, smelled like rose and
jungles that it was promised to come from.
I was promised to come from the present,
The past as you are reading.
who do we pray to how
do we live without a
god God god deity master god god god
Who is listening to us as we write
as we
Stand in running shower water drowned in red tiles as
we write
as we cuss! Cuss cuss cuss!
Words are spells.
Who made the contract I ask,
Who built this world.
That was a rhetorical question in case you were wondering because there must be a god god god deity dressed in
Evergreen like Anubis
With bleeding heart perky ears like
A lustful gluttonous pet He oversees the weighing of hearts of time and
their mummification
into
words and
guides them into their afterlife.
I said to the starfish and it kept hopping down the black and white stairs along the telephone line.
All to answer the question of why do I write
Which She asked when dressed in
black satin night gown wine glass shadow of
hieroglyphical moon
she traced the undercurve of her
Pillow
it’s seeping with dreams she hummed as she looked straight
Into
My eyes and
Took a sip of her wine full plump lips oh to be pretty! I want to stick diamonds on her
Exactly like how I write how I mummify
How I weigh a starfish
Her limb
Her black satin night gown.