It is never quite empty on the other side.
So, always leave the door unlocked
to allow strangers passage into your world.
Do something about the boarded-up windows.
They should frame the outdoors. They should
track the landscape until the landscape has grown
slack along the ragged edges, ready to be peeled off.
If you have time, head to the ruins of Gortyn in Crete.
Find the narrow crack that leads to the expansive system
of subterranean tunnels. Then you’ll know impermanence.
Then you’ll know about this undying engine of flux.
There is no way out of this maze. That’s not hope for escape
you’re seeing in the distance. It is only the rickety harbor
looking strange in the daylight that lifts the mist.
Kristine Ong Muslim
Kristine Ong Muslim is the author of We Bury the Landscape (Queen’s Ferry Press, 2012), Grim Series (Popcorn Press, 2012), and A Roomful of Machines (ELJ Publications, 2015), as well as three forthcoming books — the short story collection Age of Blight (Unnamed Press, 2016) and two poetry collections, which will be released by university presses in the Philippines.
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