She Looks Like A Sugar In A Plum (Plum Plum)

 

She Looks Like A Sugar In A Plum (Plum Plum)

 

And when he emerges from the shower,

toweling his back,

rubbing deep and dirty between the toes,

up the knees and onward elbows,

puddle-duck feet filling ceramic cracks

there’s a naked body –

small, caramel toasty and he could rest his chin

on that raven-black crown,

as capital C clasps her lower case –

cannot see her face

she’s penciling wall, something on the paper there,

and fronts him in full despair:

‘Oh, it’s gone up again.’

‘Ah, you could be right,’ he grins,

lifts and retires within –

until later, she’s slicing banana, assesses

that the small Malaysian ones are best

and should they put it to the test?

On his way, after all, to buy from Palengke,

this sweltering day, marked by EmJay

coming from there within and shouts ‘What Ah-Teh?’

Well, he could say that where he's from,

she looks like a sugar in a plum 

(plum, plum).