Anurak Saelaow: “Cosmic Permutation”
we each wanted our piece of the fire.
a puzzle, a life. in our pockets
some shiny ballast of the soul.
if you could compress a tree
into a noun, a rubber ball,
leave it straining in the freezer,
you would. i know enough
to say this. i’ve walked backwards
nightly through these walls.
you might say in terms of metaphor
i was abject. in terms of metaphor
it was a free-for-all.
some scents are a work in progress.
some might never get the call.
Anurak Saelaow is a Singaporean poet and writer. His work has been published in New Singapore Poetries, Hayden's Ferry Review, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Cultural Weekly, The Kindling, Ceriph, and elsewhere. He is the author of one chapbook, Schema (The Operating System, 2015) and holds a B.A. in creative writing and English from Columbia University. He is currently the poetry editor of sploosh! magazine.
