Mikaela Castledine #78 Behind my Back (for Chrysogonus)

There is someone

translating our poems

into a language

that I don't understand

I wonder whether

they

the poems

are still speaking for me now

Ambassadors of my thoughts

I have to trust

that they still tell

what I taught them to say

and are not

badmouthing

behind my back

the Google translation back from Indonesian

makes me laugh and laugh

beige is definitely not my colour

Inflation

I still remember
The first shirt
I bought
at my age that all sixteen
toward the city by bus

silk shirt
olive green , open arms
rolled collar
beige pants berpelisir
pays poetry
good work
for young
not to mention the eighteen

current salary unchanged
writing is not adjusted for inflation
and honoraria just enough for a bus ticket
and a cup of coffee

My best writing
only paid fifty
dollar
when I remember

never sent