Allison Hummel
GAMELAN

Otto, Otto everywhere.
That was how I felt
for a while, biting into wax
fruit, crafting
crusades in miniature,

many pastoral
hills to die on.

Otto cuts some meat with a knife.
Otto and that unspeakably
tactile sound.

Otto and that exquisitely
tactical
silence.

Otto and did you know that
bone china is made of bone?
It’s true, though.

Unlike almost all things
one might encounter
in leonine
Los Angeles

I miss you, playing
your bones like flutes. You were very
wrapped up in your brilliance.
Some perversion of a Tesla Coil.
I guess this is a love poem.

Now I listen to gamelan.
And I revisit the Zurburans
at the museum. All those
garments

all lashed up,

longing is just
loneliness in translation

Allison Hummel is based in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Her work has recently appeared in Rougarou, Anastamos, and GASHER, among others. It is forthcoming in SLANT, The Operating System, and PacificReview.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #25.