when i am inattentive

the sun steals

a few inches from my posture

and relinquishes that

diffused rainbow, like time

ate that sticky slice of kueh lapis

and proceeded to blush

in compensation.

 

 

 

 

 

we stood in the corner

of the living room, watching

the ants for so long that

they might begin to extend

their trail over our feet.

 

the languor has made us benevolent;

years ago my mother would never

have allowed this. but how

could we remedy this collective

mismanagement, when

the housekeeping has given

in to inevitability?

 

i fell asleep with them in the room,

and woke to an undone week. to stand up

to the indecisiveness of my memory,

i settled for checking the walls

for the peeled paint my mother

had found, and allowed myself to be

momentarily grateful i hadn’t

dreamt of the house’s decay.

 

then one night i found them

crawling into the nesquik

and now i know my nostalgia

is being carried away

as powder while i sleep -

how considerate the reminder

of the futility of trying

to possess a ghost.

 

 

 

 

 

this bus, bus eighty-

eight, eighty-eight

adults in capacity, or

one hundred and thirty-

two children, three children

for every two adults, an

equivalent exchange.

the few here remain, in

incapacitated captivity, sharing

the excess of space

our fraction affords us.

 

 

 

 

 

at some point of time in the early morning

when all the conciliatory lights across singapore

go off, an obligatory end to the tender period,

all along the face of the country

there is a simultaneous adjustment,

like a blackout practising restraint.

 

bus stops and car parks deny dependence

on electricity, engineering, revolting

at their insides, and giving in to freedom

to be controlled by the weather.

 

it is a remarkable act

of unanimous transition.