Valentin Stüberl
My father washed the beer glasses then stacked them. He watched the air turn the drinks into cadavers. There was a deflated globe which hung from the middle of the ceiling. It waltzed around a disco ball and had the shadow of a sequined bat.
*
I took off my glasses, wiped them, and asked my mother an honest question. “If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?” She blinked a few times and answered, plainspoken, “No.”
*
My mother was a tourist every day. She never made it home. Her return ticket was lost somewhere in a stranger’s belly, swallowed by the snake who moves from one gut to another after death. The snake awaits qiyamat. I am her so I asked myself questions like, “Why did I end up in the city? What are the chances that my son grabs a casual beer in the local bar?” Then I complained, “This is supposed to be a Pakistani neighborhood, but everyone talks in English. An English as red as the blood that’s smeared across the wolf’s mouth. Why can’t they tour London? Or haunt the dives of Portland? What’s wrong with the paper mills of Ohio?” It was all the same to my mother and me.
*
That bar was the same as any intersection in Karachi. It lost its charm decades ago when my mother stepped out of the bus with a heavy plastic bag. She wanted to make dinner for her sons. She made dinner for her sons every night. They never grew. That must be why they lost their devotion to the faith she fed them since before she stepped on the bus.
*
A tourist like me stopped inside the bar every night. He would ask my father, the barkeep, the same old question. “Can you speak English? What part of town are you from?” There was never beer to barter or cigarettes to bum. There was no difference between thank you and welcome.
A Separation
For A.
“I see the clock, but I cannot envision the clockmaker.”
Albert Einstein
I waited for the bus
in the middle of summer.
I looked at my watch,
once I caught some shade.
*
A breeze shook the palm trees,
the music in the lobby
was muffled. I looked at my watch
but never got the time.
*
On the train home, I
fell asleep and missed my stop.
The face I saw in my dream
belonged to the watch I wear.
*
I looked at my watch while
in line at the cafe. I waited to order
a cheese Danish and some
coffee. I ate a croissant.
*
In the middle of the night
I walked home alone.
A bearded stranger asked me
for money. I gave him the time.
*
I was sitting on a park bench. An
old lady and her poodle popped
a squat next to me. “Nice watch!”
They said. I was speechless.
*
I crossed the street at sunset.
While glancing at the time a
a bicyclist with food to deliver
dodged me then yelled, “watch out!”
*
I met someone at the bar. We
talked and talked until we were
bored. She caught a taxi home, so
I just stared at my watch.
*
I was flattened on the dry grass. I
followed a buzzard test the branches
on all of the trees. A butter-
fly landed on my watch.
*
Given the amount of traffic
there was today on the highway,
there was not much better I could do
other than stare at my watch.
*
Last night I went to a gallery
where the artist went on and on
with visuals about aesthetics.
All I recall is the time.
*
I ignored a phone call
from my mother. I thought
I had better things to do at the time.
The phone rang. My watch ticked.
*
I assembled a new trunk.
I could have used an extra
hand. I needed a safe place
To store all of my watches.
*
Once a girl asked me
about where I bought my watch.
I blushed and told her, “It
was a present from a long time ago.”
*
As a child I locked myself
in the bathroom. After a shower,
I stared into the mirror
to watch the time pass by.
*
When I was alone at home
I turned off the lights, closed my eyes,
and masturbated to the moonlight.
I knew that someone was watching me.
*
My friend and I watched
a matinee screening of a movie
on a rainy Sunday morning.
It was two hours long.
*
When I was a teenager, I found
a kitten in the garbage can. I took
her and kept watch on her until
she was a white cat. She died.
*
My father once slapped my face
in front of an entire congregation,
because I took a look at my
watch in the middle of a Salat .
*
I tried to run away from
home. Around two miles out
I turned around. I realized
that I forgot my watch.
*
The first thing she told me
after climax was that
she was terrible with names, but
she never forgets the face of a watch.
*
Every night before I go to bed,
almost as a ritual, I put on
a Billie Holiday album and listen
to “Someone to Watch Over Me.”
*
When I finally made it home, I
took off my shoes, my socks, my
pants, my shirt, and stacked my
hands over my heart. It stopped.
***
Author photograph by Charlotte Kesl
