Poetry from The Literary Review
Night Song in Ceylon
DO KH
Boarding the airplane at 4:25 AM
To change pillowcases, empty ashtrays and pick up blankets
Colombo by night
We don't wear panties to dance on bar tables
We hold brooms
We hold vacuum cleaners
We have thin chests, short legs, and hair held in buns
Song of Ceylon
O Robert Flaherty
We don't have gold nose rings
First woman: I have a child at home
Who's sleeping with his father
His father works during the day
Second woman: I have two children at home
Who are sleeping with their paternal
grandmother
Their father is a laborer overseas
Third woman: I have three children at home
Who are sleeping with each other
I don't know where their father is
Whether in the Army or with a lover
We don't greet the nodding passengers
Traveling from Singapore to Dubai
They are going from the Philippines to Oman to build
From Thailand to Abu Dhabi to clean and sweep
From Indonesia to Kuwait to babysit and raise chickens
(I take care of other people's children
But when I go home on leave
I'll buy for my own child a computer
game as a present)
(And I'm saving money to get married)
(And I'm working to pay off debts)
On the United Arab Emirates airliner they are nodding off to
sleep
Sleep well all you long distance laboring heroes
We also don't greet the air stewardess
From England Finland Denmark and Egypt (with dyed blond
hair)
We do not greet them
We are the laborers from Ceylon
Boarding the airplane before dawn
We walk on the runway carrying trash bags.
Translated by Linh Dinh
