Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar, “I find my marriage” 89

We go to floors seven and eight

Alison Grace Koehler

We go to floors seven and eight to sleep inside separate walls Rooms the size of a glass shower Too tall, your feet will stick out a television attached to the capsule’s top the only station is porn Volume audible throughout the men’s story hiccuping moans all night I don’t even know there’s a TV inside the capsule on the women’s level no one has theirs on We are fifty, perhaps I pull down the bamboo screen but the outside light stays on all night it peeks in through the corners and I don’t sleep. Instead I use the prepaid SIM card as I’ve done during these two weeks on bullet trains, in temples, in public baths to send messages to someone eight hours in the past This night, under white sheets and blanket I ask him -What do you remember? The shape of the space between your eyelids and eyebrows. The way your breasts feel underneath fabric. -What do you think about when you make yourself come? Coming inside of you. He tells me, before I go to sleep, to cup my hands Fill them with cold water and pour it on my face. In the morning we meet on the level with a large screen and vending machines You hand me a cardboard cup of tea and tell me about your feet sticking out of the capsule listening to Japanese porn all night I tell you about the light peeking in from the sides of the bamboo screen