Eraser’s Guest

It’s a shame this poem’s already been erased when

I go to read it. Like humid air that tugs

at my arm to catch what will fall, is

falling, and falls. What’s up with erasing? Glue,

scissors, and yarn make a shadow of barbed

wire. I erase the word erase from the documentation,

out from the barbed wire. Return each word

to glue, scissors, and yarn so as to

hide, lose, and erase once again

the word erase. And a knock

that’s never been erased inside a shadow’s

death: a guest from a door’s shadow that’s never

knocked on the door.

The guest suspects I don’t have a chair to

die in if I don’t have a floor to live on. Waiting.

Waited on. Plans at 7 p.m. They serve the word

eraser from a bookstore to their guests,

like a shadow that’ll slip away from its light.

You’re my guest who I wait for from the mistake

of typing the word erase in a story about

a brilliant morning and birds in flight

drifting away erasing their own chirps.

You don’t have another chance to tidy what no

longer can be erased, after this poem. An eraser

makes five o’clock in the evening. Comes through till its

vacancy can no longer be seen.

Translated from Indonesian

Notes:

Please read the original poem “Tamu Penghapus” in Indonesian here.

Source: Document Shredding Museum (World Poetry Books, 2024)