Catherine Strisik
Fireworks explode over the Mekong.
The restaurant balcony is a pop-eyed gecko damp with pity.
Friends drink
a second Angkor Beer each.
The Khmer puts on his glasses, continuously.
Mind wanders between this world
and the world.
Tonight, the baffled city soothes
itself with curious costumed dancers.
The American doctor’s heart grasps for
forgetting and some kind of god
which is like someone
wearing a mask
and holding the shatters
in gloved hands.
Catherine Strisik has been active in the poetry community of Taos, New Mexico for over 25 years. Her work has appeared in Comstock Review, Northwest Review, 5 am, The Sulphur River Literary Review, Tusculum Review, War, Literature and the Arts, Peregrine and House Organ. Thousand-Cricket Song, a collection reflective of her Cambodian experience, is forthcoming from Plain View Press.