The Drawer

It’s a drawer that only holds flesh

It never grows, or sinks into soil

It needs no watering; during the day he passes through streets and alleys

Walking behind the purposelessly preoccupied crowd

At night he drags his emptied-out body back

And plugs it into a lit neon lamp, greasily

Opening his complete nakedness to the deep dark corridor

He walks in and out of offices, malls, back lanes and public toilets

Shaking out and closing a pile of disarrayed A4 paper

No one sees their content, the cheques and coins

Transfer automatically to his scar-covered wall

The doctor pulls down three scabs and four adenomatous polyps

The bank retrieves the once promised figures, former lovers

Scrape off all their memorial tattoos and scenery

No scenery, only closed, cleansed souls

He tries to stand on the beach, recline in an open-air café

Block another’s line of sight in the cinema, in a one-woman brothel

The hooker hanging onto the last of her youth can’t lay her hands on him

He tries hard to squeeze out smiles that are neither here nor there

And busies himself eating, drinking, discharging a whole race of gecko corpses

And still warm, fresh and soft cockroach eggs

He stares at the keyhole on his stomach imagining a key that was never there

He attempts to be honest, but others throw coins at him

Attempts to hide the disorderly mound buried in his door plate like an amnesiac tombstone

Until he notices he can no longer fit into last night’s corridor

Disappointed, he falls in the street, where a truck runs him over

Just in time for the glowing red tail lights to shine on nothing

The wood displaying sections of body-like texture