it starts with a new pair of feet under the table,

where a festive spread sits atop

laundered tablecloth. you are home

for the first time in a year. now

we deal with newness every day —

the weight you lost; your old sandals

on my grown feet; the fridge replete with

your smuggled spoils. the virus.

but some things stay the same:

it is time we burn

money for your parents. here

at home, i ruffle the stacks with you;

at the job overseas, it is a

solitary affair. still, to this day, you

note events in relation to their

departures (the new zealand trip

a year after yeye, the new house

a year before nainai).

i have never understood why

until i realised that when you

touch your heart, they are

all you see. they are part of you

like ashes in ascendant air.

ash is the memory of paper;

you are the memory of

them; i am the memory

of you.

we have such capacity for love

that we burn it in bins and cry to

those still alive to hear.

and yes,

when next year comes around, and

newness abounds once more,

we will gather, as we do

every year, and come back

to remember.

Previously published in Eunoia Review.

she remembers the angsanas tattooed with lightning, lips

bursting with urgent teochew, crooked

toes in oblong chalk squares. now

there is only the raunchy stink

of diesel in fresh-cut grass, cigarette

smoke in

kopitiams. she sees the

gravel paths and backyard chickens in her

kampung and suddenly she sees

no more kampung, just matchboxes

dyed different colours with

segregated residents. just puddles in roads

and buses going nowhere. just a memory

of a railroad, leading off into the past.

he reads local poetry in school and

does not understand why everyone has a kampung

fetish. there is no glory in poor living conditions. there is

only progress in healthcare plans,

beauty in prohibitions. his ah ma sparkles

dreaming of gravel paths and backyard chickens

and suddenly he sees

no more ah ma, just matchboxes

lowered into the dirt, still slick from

midnight rain. just workers filling in potholes

and people going nowhere. just a cramped train with

no space for nostalgia, heading off into the future.

Awarded the Merit Prize in National Poetry Competition 2019 (English, 15-18 Years Old).

she sits in the void deck somewhere in

the middle of choa chu kang (

which is to say in the middle of nowhere)

and no one ever notices.

her fingers catch on the mosaic

checker board table, the grooves like

her eggshell

shoulders, carved out by backpacks with primary

school worksheets. one day, she

thinks, ah boy will see this place for what it

is and leave for bigger

things. they all do. nothing

ever comes of this place

anymore, except the familiar scent

of chicken shit from the jurong farms

(or maybe nothing ever comes of this place

because of the chicken shit scent)

but what difference does that

make to her, her life is mahjong and ah boy and

where then is there space

for retail electricity privatisation and

chicken shit ruminations?

no, one day there won’t even be space for

mahjong and ah boy, only that for

crumpling lungs and trembling breaths,

and then finally no space at all, a whirlpool

of ash and forgone conclusions

collapsing into itself. maybe

someone will immortalise her in poetry

(or maybe they’ll never notice the

empty stool and keep seeing

calcified aunty mirages)

maybe this is what it means to be forgotten: to

begin in the middle of nowhere

(which is to say in the middle of nowhere)

and never leave at all.

Previously published in Threads of Life: Creative Arts Programme 30th Anniversary Publication.