Two souls in love must be enough
to exist in separate carriages
oiling up worn out tracks
parting, inching closer
derailing , kissing
being at ease with rain
and unabated floods
with no dams
given in, involved with
taken, forsaken
for granted just like the canons
of the wise songbirds, lost
oversung words, lusting
a continental drift reaching a sufficient draw
in distance, in nearness, in between
in an auditorium where Goenawan dedicates
a river part to Latiff and our seats apart
i saw you melting in batik and all of these people
that don't have to be here in Klang Valley,
in chaos and in cosmos
between bibles in Borneo and Mak Yong
lost in translations and constellations
veined on bodies entwined in an awkward
embrace that demands no arms
in self effacement and in sacrifice or otherwise
in Sapardi, in Parsi, in Palestine
in between arch of bridges
your shoulders, my spine
the Shah Alam sunset,
we unvoid ourselves to the
discourses and definitions
sermons and venoms that become
norms to be a kind of fake divine
to be kind because love is
a hikayat you unceremoniously call myth
because the truth makes you feel
fear unsettling under your own
skin wounding of a conversation you have no part of
so when strangers choose to become dams to our rivers
we learn to let them be,
but if one of us gives no damn
then what does it make us both
becoming the losing cause
unbecoming, because
only two souls loving can be enough