the bindi escape
an ordinary girl with perfect features and a living deity
caught between the nearly-broken zipper of time
of trammeled drapery of tradition
poached red beams and freshly-squeezed morning noises
pouring out towards the streets
hasty footsteps moving the alleyways forwards
the altar’s loitering in the still-tired square
beside sleepy fences of sanctified tourist postcards
a living deity’s forbidden to count her own steps
converse with her ideas
stir her body, with hands or mind, instinctively or intentionally
nor toy with the conceivable outcome of wandering matters:
making silver bullets pass through ash-thin petals,
leading a lost compass back on its track with a string of questions
resurrecting timeworn earth with a punctured shovel
cracking open an urn with will
picking thorns out of glassy eyes
the pinpoint of apologies
she is to sit
within silence’s watchful reach
practice alogia
the plasma will flow in due course
12 days of purifying in isolation
she wipes the red sun
belated dreams off her charcoal-rimmed eyes
the spirit vacates the body
light escaping between her remoistenable thighs
two entities lie languidly
in the corona of midnight innocence
making bolts out of peepal with burgeoning tongues
the bindi’s making a scandalous cross
towards freedom
Lưu Diệu Vân 