Eating Durian With Chandra Poem by Jan Owen

Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur

We stopped round midnight at a hawker's stall
of durian mobiles and braided mangosteen
―haute coiffure with minibombs
―dangling echidnas in army green.

The Chinese vendor aimed his cleaver twice
Thunk! then wrenched the splits apart
Uh! on a smell as powerful as the hide
and we sat at his rickety table and ate

on the slope in the haze with one foot over the kerb,
discussing relative merits: in short, the taste's
like garlic custard in a urinal. Ah,
but more... This was the Month of the Hungry Ghosts

and the glutted shrines. I saw only a rat
patrolling a ledge in search of a window gap
as we breathed and became pure durian,
the loose flesh melting eerily ripe

as ectoplasm in August, or creamy sex
on the cunning tongue. Taboo, almost,
the pungent, savoury-sweet ambivalence
haunted our breath for hours like a sated ghost.