"Unspoiled Fictions" by Jenny Xie

UNSPOILED FICTIONS

           “when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability
            to leave your own banality and boredom . . .”                    —Jamaica Kincaid



The ease with which a place becomes an entry:
searchlight            viewfinder            fantasy’s aperture



Smell of my lateral gazing
Reach of the outsider’s extravagant need



While I listened for the dialects
While I hunted down the night markets’ chewed lips



Authentic encounters executed           just so
Extractions of color and details in the needed size



Beauty kept simple and numbness hot
The contracts and the rot in the air are merciful




Source of the text - Jenny Xie, Eye Level: Poems.  Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2018, p. 5.

TJB: Instafragments. These ghazal-like lines capture surface details from a tourist’s perspective, carefully curated. Show us the spoiled ones!