Thai massage
at the women’s prison --
she works on my feet
and plans her escape;
I can feel it
Take Five : Best Contemporary Tanka, Vol. 3, 2011
Bob Lucky
Commentary: Although Lucky went as a tourist to Thailand, his experience and thoughts go well beyond the usual tourist venues. Dark, yet humorous, trivial, yet troubling, he gives a complex and ambiguous description of an unexpected scene. Lucky’s poem exposes the power imbalance inherent between the Westerner free to fantasize about exotic Oriental women and the Asian woman who has no choice but to endure a stranger projecting his fantasies onto her, a literal prisoner at his feet. -- excerpted from To the Lighthouse: The Problem of Tanka : Definition and Differentiation by M. Kei
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