Dianty Ningrum: ‘Cium’
Dianty Ningrum reading ‘Cium’
Death smells like Jasmine
In our land
Most of the tea smells like death
Thus my morning tea is my smelling death
And cium is both smell and kiss
So in another word (another world)
I kiss death (I smell death) every morning
In addition to (or in lieu of) subuh
Mother taught me to cool hot tea in a wide bowl
Most privileged are those who can sit down
And wait until the tea is kind
To their tongues, the sky to their roofs
But not me, I always have to tinggal
Which means I have to stay, tinggal on my seat
But also leave, tinggalkan my tea
And both are the same to my tongue
Or else, the commuter train’s leaving
Not only me but everyone who wants nothing
But to make a meagre living
And both are the same to your tongue
I feel the world by its temperatures
The jolting heat of angkot’s carburetor on my calf
Lukewarm water of 4 a.m showers
Humid dusk when mother came home
When I gave her salim as fast as a peck
I sense the coldness of her wedding ring
the metal plate in her faux Prada bag
the back casing of her green Nokia phone
Feel how they absorbed the manufactured breeze
eight-to-five, in a room snuggled inside a factory
while mother spent days filling in numbers
and having back-to-back meetings
Or rapat, in our words
Which also mean tightly, rapat-rapat
The way she kept her drawer covered
Stashing maiden portraits and medical diagnoses
Years later I’m still smelling, mother
My sleeves reeking of warm oil and tangy liquids
My neck smuggling hints of provocative flower
Like you, I grow up to be a contradiction
I’m also still kissing, mencium everything
Yes, even the artefacts of impossible lives
A photo where you have bushy maiden hair too
Dimmed—like a beauty that never experiences itself
Glossary
Cium: kiss, smell (homophones)
Tinggal: leave, stay (homophones)
Rapat: meetings (n), tightly (a)
Subuh: Dawn prayer
Salim: Indonesian custom of greeting the elders by kissing the back of their hands or touching them with our forehead
Dianty Ningrum was born and raised in Indonesia. She recently won second place at the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition and was shortlisted for the Montreal International Poetry Competition. Her poems have appeared in The Scores and Australia Poetry Anthology.