From Liang Yue Xian: Truce

From Liang Yue Xian: Truce

From Liang Yue Xian: Truce

It was as if someone said stop. Just like that. Stop.
Stop. And it did. And they all walked out in the sunlight
and blinked. Blinked. The Japanese soldiers
blinked and laid down their arms. The emperor

has surrendered.  The emperor has surrendered.
Food on the table. She grants a reprieve
and the days roll on through their cycle of small events.
Laying out bread and condensed milk for breakfast.

Taking the kids to the outhouse. Another daughter. Six years
spent teaching in villages with no running water. Back in Kuching
her children point at the light bulbs in wonder. A motor car
turns down their street, they run after it, waving.

Wooden shutters push open. Metal grilles fold
and creak back. Wheels trundle
through the street below. Beneath the floorboards
a tinsmith taps on his anvil. Another morning.

She greets her mother-in-law in the kitchen.
The children, wary, take up their positions,
will it be silence today, or words
like quick bullets?  She watches

her husband shift in his seat,
he will try to outrun her:
Politics, Business interests, Elections;
try to regain lost ground

by stealth, by impressive acheivement: City Councillor. 
Chairman of the Chinese School Teacher’s Union. 
Assistant Minister. The man revered
for knowing his electorate by name.

It’s all the same. More big dinners. 
More late nights out. More parades to attend. 
She beats a quick retreat to the bedroom. Complains
of indigestion. Complains when he comes home past twelve.

She clings to routine, walks the same path
to the market each day, closing her eyes to the people
who whisper and wave. Down Carpenter Street.
Up to Gambier Road. She buys bread

from the same stall. She fingers the dry ikan bilis
almost bought yesterday and then lets it fall.
The butcher slaps pork on the counter. 
As they always have, the vegetable sellers call—

“Sweet cucumber! Fresh fern leaf from up-country!”
Above her head, the swallows wheel and return.
Chicken blood runs in the gutters. She stares.
Last night he brought soup to her bedside. Double-boiled chicken.