"The Lost Art of Flirting", Max Pasakorn
In the restaurant, the waiter still thinks
we are friends. I read the menu in its
arrogant cursive, remember the letters
I’ve received from you — each little alphabet
curled valiantly, the confident brushstrokes
of an artist seasoned with age. But you
also know to be young, your buttons
unfastened, your neckline exposed, a teaser
for a bootleg porn parody. Your hair
is carefully tufted, ready to bloom
with hyacinths. Your eyes are wishing wells,
overflowing but precious. And your voice,
warm and thunderous, beckons an excited echo.
So that’s how we go. You and your strangely
specific jokes about common things we share:
a strict mother and a laissez-faire father,
abandonment issues, beautiful creatures
living our minds we happen to call Pokemon.
When we step outside, you tell me the moon
is full tonight, so I look up
at the soft grey craters
of a quiet rock
painting a spotlight
of you in the dark.
/ Max Pasakorn (he/she/they) is a queer, Thai-born, Singapore-based essayist and poet. Max’s writing, predominantly about their identities, has been published in or is forthcoming in Chestnut Review, Freeze Ray Poetry, Strange Horizons, Defunkt Magazine, EXHALE: an anthology of queer Singaporean voices and more. Read more about Max at www.maxpasakorn.works.
/ COMMENTARY
“This poem is a tender rendering of a night out with a couple, not yet out of the honeymoon phase. The narrator takes their cues to be attentive to sense and imagery from their lover. It is a reminder that romance requires a concerted effort to notice beauty in the ones we love but is ultimately a reciprocal task. ”