Still Life On Rice Paper Poem by Bernard Henrie

I

Girl with peacock wings,
blue dusk over Kobe.

II

Murakami looks dead when he sleeps.
Birds at great distance circle behind
his darkened eyes.

His wife sets out octopus and pickle dishes
preparing to paint a still life; carrots orange
as butane flames from her husband’s cigarette
lighter.

Thick, light; fat heavy plates, rice in heaps
so white they became a character noticeable
as Murakami himself; a box of his English,
Churchman #1 cigarettes.

A long, slender leek like a surgeon’s
abdominal cut, or her face powder fallen
across his hairless chest.

Latches, bottle and jar pattern.

She opens her shirtwaist, he will sense
her exposure, wake slowly. If a tempura
swatch touches her skin, he will
remove it with his mouth.