Pelé
©
Kyi May Kaung
So many years I
lie
dormant but not
dormant
alive not sleeping
rumbling at night
deep down
my insides
corroded
anger and gastric
juices
nightmares,
haunting.
I can stand no
more
I erupt blow my
top off
it’s like a bomb.
I belch rocks and
fire and smoke
red hot fountain,
summit of the
mountain, gone.
My blood liquid
magma hot enough
to melt rock solid
into liquid
flows down viscous
my flanks
coagulating. Cooling flowing slower
losing red angry
glow – growing
grayer blacker –
still I cover everything
in my path – waves
of pleated porous
sponge, piled up
folds – how comical to
see you run –
ahead – fear gripped
while I hiccup
gases, shower you with
ashes, you can
hardly
run, faster than I
go
no longer can you
laugh – vainglorious
at my power – all
the flowers, all the
prayers – the
scented
water, are useless
now
run – as fast as
you
can
I engulf forever –
your body empty mold
in my flow, my
folds –
breadfruit in
stone oven – you
lie preserved exactly as
you fell
destroy create
create
destroy. enfold remold. Pelé her mate
flat footed
albatross, so
different from
his legend
in the
Rime.
Into the sea I
fall curlicues
of red hot glass,
nature’s hand
abstract brooches,
swirling ears
queries, paisley
mangoes –
Drip.
Water at once you
try to put me out
I steam I sizzle —
still red hot
inside crusty old outside
I dive still hot –
explode under the surface
sequences – all my
evil
gases spent I
tumble down continental
shelves –
cover living coral
living bone
break down into
pebbles
black sand –
Never before have
I seen
a black beach --
you lie white
bodied
beached whale come
up for
air
a breach
birth. Don’t die, don’t die
don’t die on me,
now –
the yellow tang
fled the boiling
waters – return in
droves
spawn over
me –
To the black sand
you float
coconut, wave
borne
wave foams –
breaks
recedes –
you have your
husk, your
insulation
your built in
float –
rat tail of your
insemination
residual-umbilical
points outward –
horizontal
the Pacific from
whence
you came –
Inside I know
you are hard nut
to
crack – holding
white flesh
small sweet
interior
ocean – murmuring
sad stories
forever –
and inside your
heart
porous, tasteless
embryo of
coconuts to
come.
you root –
you grow into a
tree
living off
of me –
your fronds catch
the
breeze – you
flower, you
fruit – drop more
coconuts
into
the sea.
How can black sand
not love
the coconut tree?
