Untitled: On a branch an ant stood

On a branch an ant stood
in a trough of bark
a woody ridge it strained
to look
but could not see
beyond the fork ahead
impossible to tell
the final degree of
a turn
sudden surprising
crossing and recrossing
the woody rivulets
channels that read like an
indecipherable script
no ant knows
at any time
the branch it walks on
mapless blind
it marches
along the neverending
branching byways
of its universe.

Portraits

ONE
When he left for work he peeled off the layers of home that had accumulated around him. The first was his wife, who would kiss him goodbye the first thing in the morning, because she had to rush off to teach in junior college. Like an unwanted rind his house clothes were discarded in the laundry bin. Next, the children conveniently of schoolgoing age would leave, without question of how voluntary or involuntary the act of going to school was. It was not a question of  choice, or even of necessity. No question had ever arisen in these matters of life. 

Mr Tan was grateful that the family was not one of those families. No, as easily as he dropped his clothing, he dropped his children into a neat container for domestic affairs. Then it was off to work, and to the life of bossing his people a little, and treating his superiors with the most politic combination of deference and peermanship. Occasionally, when in a good mood, he would casually brag about the latest gift Mrs Tan had received, or the eldest aiming to enter Harvard. He was a most ordinary man. 

TWO

Her morning routine was precise, unmarred by the demands of others. She cleaned up. She pulled on each item of clothing in quiet reflection but with certitude, like a warrior on the edge of an impending battle. The blouse was followed by the skirt followed by eau de toilette, necklace and make up. She made sure her work clothes were crisp, always cutting a neat silhouette. Nothing would link her to the frump and weariness of middle age.

 As she clicked across bank corridors in no-nonsense black leather three-inch heels, she prepared her face for the twenty faces that would surround her, that would make demands and no concessions, that would declare the improbable and denounce the factual, that would not listen but react, that would agree but fail to act. A skilled strategist, she would assess the situation and decide whether to take the easiest win -- the influential but silent retiree in the corner -- or go for the kill by taking down the ringleader, or play one group off another. When things were bad, she would bide her time and influence from the shadows, through the coffee talk and casual lunches, even going so far as to attend the evening drinking sessions which bored her. 

There had been another retiree once -- one she was rather fond of for his avuncular habit of asking after her health. He never failed to do so, even after the few meetings when he had sharply disagreed with her methods. She knew he had three children and seven grandchildren. He had been fond of talking about them. She felt she knew a little of each person through their father: the eldest son who was an Oxford grad, in-house counsel for an investment bank; the younger son, a romantic, an excellent musician with no interest in luxury so his father had set him up with a guitar shop of his own; and the youngest, a daughter, petite and unassuming, but already a vice president in a pharmaceutical firm. 

She had dropped by at this retiree's funeral. She wanted to bring the flowers personally, but nobody had thought to inform the company that the family had requested for no wreaths. So she was forced to leave it in a corner, as discretely as she could. As she walked towards the coffin she felt each lily staring accusations at her. When she shook the hands of the two sons and the daughter and introduced herself, they gave her a blank look. "From the company," she said. Knowing nods, and then their gaze turned to the other guests queuing behind her. 

----

Dealing in Death

Blood bespeckles the carcasses laid in neat rows across the stainless steel surfaces. Beside them, behind rusty iron bars, future victims look on. The cages are barely a foot high--just enough to live in, but not enough room to raise one's head and plead for clemency, for a momentary reprieve. One cage happens to be level with the block, and a young fellow gazes with curiosity at the glint of knife as it swings up and then down onto a former cellmate. I wonder if he knows what he sees, or if that cold, calm gaze means that he has accepted his status in the food chain.

"Dua ayam kampung," my father requests. We are shopping for a dinner party for the extended family. I look back at the trolley basket, at the parcels of other cold, dead things. They are more slimy, but there isn't much blood to look at, and there isn't much that looks back. The lady opens the cage, the chickens rush squawking to the corners, like a game of musical chairs. One doesn't find a safe chair. It is stuck at the fringe of bodies pressing against the iron. She drags the slow one out by the neck, pinioning its wings behind it before she places it on the weighing scale. Satisfied, she hands it to her assistant. Its nervous clucking rises to hysterical screeches as he carries it away, out of sight.

The chicken seller tells us to return in fifteen minutes. My father and I oblige. We head to the butchers' section where the pork sellers' stalls are. The floor is wet with melted ice dripping off the fishmongers' tables as we pass by. Enthusiastic stall hands wave fish in our faces, opening their gills to show their redness. "Ini cantik, very nice fish, sir, twelve ringgit a kg." "Miss, miss any fish for you? Sotong?" But its eye was dull and jellied. A fresh fish looks back. Even when dead, there's a gleam in the eye that takes a while to disappear. Beneath the table, a blue crate of swirling black things. Several whiskers protrude from the mass and sway in the air. It's a glistening mass of catfish, the layer on top writhing their way below, drowning in the air above; the layer below struggling to the top, crushed beneath their fellows.

I turn the corner after my father. The white-tiled walls aren't so clean here. They have a mottled appearance, stained with brownish streaks and specks. Old blood, maybe. Huge hooks suspend various parts of meat, even whole carcasses, from long steel bars. The butcher takes hold of one chunk, slices a hunk off it and chops it up for a customer. The pinkish meat left on the hook sways gently in tandem with the knife. We order trotters. The leg is difficult to cut. The butcher's chopper gets lodged in the bone, so he raises the whole leg with the chopper, and smashes it down on the board until it cuts through. He does this several times, then gathers the pieces into a pink plastic bag.