Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW
Vol. 5 Num 716 Sat. June 03, 2006  
   
Literature


Trash Bags
Millicent Chen

City sidewalk,
pressed into perfect squares
of four by four.
I see big black lumpy beetles
rustling as the wind blows
and their wings caress each other.
It's a funny kind of insect,
to sit solitary on the sidewalk like that
breathing in car fumes
and thinking as it does.
People talking
mindlessly circumnavigate
the little thing
in a sanitary dance:
partnering in unsaid concordance
their lips not ceasing once.
A small man in an apron
approaches the beetle
Unfurls his fingers, releases
coloured capsules into its mouth
It grows instantly,
and tries to run.
the man
grabs,
wrings,
twists:
and all is still.
He places them, side by side,
against each other,
and huddled, they whisper
awaiting their fate...
I watch them,
my imagination runs aground
with images of corpus delicti
and I wonder
what secrets they hold inside.

Millicent Chen is a young Singaporean poet.