Marvelous Banality

You’re splattered ink on paper,
all smudges and blots.
More fun than scissor-ed silhouettes.
I look at you, my creature of chance:
not a flying bat, not a winged devil,
not a skeleton wearing a fancy hat.
What are you? Even additional brushstrokes
cannot make you whole.

You take shape in the clouds, too.
Floating, you are gazed at, subliminal.
Perceiving phenomena in you as you drift by
is no more or less scientific than reading palms.
Whims are laws. The next instant I look,
you disappear into another cunning cloud.
You are now a cow—oh wait—a spear.

You may be fata morgana. Nature
and you combined to fool me. You appear far,
far above this journeying girl, seeking
a notion of home. From a mysterious point
in the same country, your hot layers of words
reflected and refracted in sun’s grace.
I see you: So you are real.
But when this traveler reaches her destination,
she finds nothing there. The image consumed
by expectations; and the sky finally clears.






Click here to listen to Tammy Ho Lai-Ming reading "Marvelous Banality"

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming is a Hong Kong-born writer currently based in London, UK. She edited Hong Kong U Writing: An Anthology (2006) and co-edited Love & Lust (2008). She is also a founding co-editor of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal and has published literary dialogues with historian and poet Reid Mitchell, whose poem "Crane" appeared in Issue #46 of Pedestal. For more information, visit www.sighming.com.