On Summer Nights by Joey Ng

On Summer Nights by Joey Ng

On summer nights the heat is oppressive,

Turning softest sheets into instruments

Of pain, shrink wrap clinging to sticky limbs.

There is no cool spot on the pillow I’m

Afraid; the air conditioning is a joke,

This is human conditioning at best.

In the day I walk out of the front door

And an embraced with cruel humidity,

Enveloping and all-encompassing,

In sinister charades with the damned heat.

Mind you this is on the 46^th floor,

High enough to enjoy occasional

Breezes, and where I’m still in the shade.

After a long drop down the concrete shaft,

I walk out under great sails of frost glass,

Subjugating myself to the unbridled

Glare of the contemptuous midday sun.

My clothing suddenly transformed into

Activated heating pads roasting my

Skin in their unrelenting leaden grip.

Never before had I so despised the

Color black, sopping up the suns hot rays;

Even my own head of hair betrayed me!

And so we endured; climbing temple steps

Guarded by swarms of gnawing mosquitoes

Nipping our ankles despite the thick smoke;

Traversing through the huddled black tents of the

Wet markets, with livers and knuckles on

Hooks, and tanks of live sea turtles and eels.

When the rain comes it appears en masse,

Relentlessly battering the tin roofs

And prompting old ladies to take our their

Umbrellas; but even occasional

Umbrellas to the face do not disturb

The welcome respite from the boorish sun.

A Letter of Recommendation

BY YEHUDA AMICHAI 1924–2000

TRANSLATED BY CHANA BLOCH AND STEPHEN MITCHELL

On summer nights I sleep naked

in Jerusalem. My bed

stands on the brink of a deep valley

without rolling down into it.

In the daytime I walk around with the Ten

Commandments on my lips

like an old tune someone hums to himself.

Oh touch me, touch me, good woman!

That’s not a scar you feel under my shirt, that’s

a letter of recommendation, folded up tight,

from my father:

“All the same, he’s a good boy, and full of love.”

I remember my father waking me for early prayers.

He would do it by gently stroking my forehead, not

by tearing away the blanket.

Since then I love him even more.

And as his reward, may he be wakened

gently and with love

on the Day of the Resurrection.

Yehuda Amichai, “Letter of Recommendation” from Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, published by Harper & Row. Copyright © 1986 by Yehuda Amichai. Reprinted by permission of Hana Amichai.

Source: The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai (Harper & Row, 1986)