Private Joker

In the space between
Gasp and afterglow
By the slip-fault
Of wood frame and window

She’s taking photographs of a future life
He – smirking heroic
In khaki poised
Patient as death, his kaleshnikov scythe
Awaiting the kill shot
By the slip-fault
Of wood frame and window

Freeze – her forefingers frame the shot.
Blooming
From absent white to blood red

And here, she is
Hunched, nestled in bedsheets
Writing, ‘You’ll see, I’ll forge the world anew
My pen is the barrel of a gun.’

He keeps forgetting she is younger than he.

Down by desert flats the sun
Passes a uniform arc
From horizon to night.
Buildings which would have once blocked its passage
Now rubble.

Her ideals are hard.
They will break before they bend.

He will break her.

© Wenee Yap.