The Triangle by Jack Xi
you have flown at me across the restaurant bathroom tiles
terrified thumblong, browned plastic leaf
with cream paint,
blurred bottlebrush legs and antennae
whipping one-two to taste my skin
as I screamed so loud everyone
in the world put down their forks to figure out why
for one thing it seems I have fed you,
crumb by shaken-off crumb all my life
so like a dog with its dangling tongue
you wagged to love me back with a kiss
for the other I am the body of night,
starless with rolled newspaper, red-capped
spray can, even once a cartoon bible,
and the best place to not be struck
is at the knees of the killer
begging I have a soil-dark
rice-shaped egg sac
that still hasn’t hatched
under the sink of this fine establishment
so please do not kill me until I am dead,
and it is not fair that I end you
for you have cleaned up after me
as you cleaned forest floors,
without unions, tips, never once
a bucket,
and again you are American
and we do so love America;
I have shaped my tongue, like yours,
to lick grease off American wrappers under tables
or dart 3 kilometers through the sewage
of pop that’s flushed to us
and we both do not speak
of where it is you truly came from –
200 years of slavers’ ships
reddening the ocean between
Africa, America, and sweet English soil,
soil tracked in by the enlightened men
who made this fork mine
and this unfinished squid with mayo mine,
and this off-white paint finish mine,
and this bathroom,
in which we avoid each others’ eyes –
one incapable of tears, the other faceted
as jewels or listening towers –
the place where we ask each other why.
Jack Xi (they/he) is a disabled Singaporean writer. If you see them, they'd love to hear about the last bug you saw.