Once a year, a slaughter pen... | QLRS Vol. 20 No. 3 Jul 2021

Quarterly Literary Review Singapore

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Once a year, a slaughter pen...

Once a year, a slaughter pen is set up in the mosque. Whatever space is available, blood must flow. It coats the floor, this memory is brown, crusted over my skin unravelling from the edge, I am older still and still towards-death, I see layers of reality superimposed upon each other scattering the light in prismatic splendour, hear instead swollen intestines slacken shit to dirt. They say the animals cry trails of wet when the day arrives, I have long forgotten my prayers for daybreak and sundown so I: cup my hands to the sky, why won't it rain? The tropical heat peeks, it the masculine monolith it leers as I wipe the sweat from my brow peer through the thickets and thorns the vines and veins tangled in this sky-scraper below the crescent moon that prostrates in the sky, there I: sigh at this light, see it glint off the railing hear the bleating in a distant past in a distant present too. I do not scream, afraid of the swallow, afraid of the scythe. Feet turned hooves. There are no corners, here, this is here. Cup your hands, turn right and left. The light is green. I sway. I sway. I sway. Once a year, a slaughter pen is set up in the mosque

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By Nur`Ain Zainal

QLRS Vol. 20 No. 3 Jul 2021

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	OTHER POEMS IN THIS ISSUE Hate Crime by Terri Kirby Erickson The Peony by Terri Kirby Erickson [the kapok tree] by Edith Clare Carbon Cycle by King Llanza Seekers by Ian Goh Hsien Jun What the Flood May Feel Like by Ho Ren Chun home is nowhere, therefore you by Laura Jane Lee Burying myself by Ian Salvaña

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