Alison Clara Tan

A Really Modern House

—after Jill Magi

I use the hand dryer in my office bathroom
a lot these days. Those hardworking whooshes
and the light smearing in. I pump my beautiful
bovine legs to traipse round the field of Slack.
I am an avid Slack traipser. Imagine Facebook
but all your colleagues are your friends.
I Zoom into each strand of hair and discover
they are really tiny pneumatic tubes
of soy sauce. I hear the soy sauce industry
needs many spreadsheets, for which I am
the man for the job. On days off I watch
the friendly mould on my wall pixellate
into my inbox. I can’t have girls over
because of the leak, but if they did
I’d be confident in my ability to go above
and beyond. Another eyelash falls between
the tiles of my keyboard. It was exciting
when the fire alarm rang last Tuesday
and we ran out into the courtyard.
The rain slapped diamond bracelets
on my wrist, but it was just a drill. That
was exciting too. When I get shouted at,
tiny winged horses flap around inside me
to illuminate my distress. I burn amulets
for my manager’s bad leg. One day
I’ll write a poem for him, I love him so.
Dead neckties, puce pothos, paternosters,
performance reviews. I love all these.
On country walks with my best friends
I think hard about how to promote
the yew and bellflower. And I do all this
for a really modern house, with grey waxworks
and sewage water that drains at top speed.

Alison Clara Tan’s poetry appears in fourteen poems and Gutter Magazine, among others. She is a Brooklyn Poets Fellow.