Squatting Quietly (Firstfruits, 2000)

"With works such as his and that of other outstanding young poets, the continuity of Singaporean poetry is more than assured. We have cause to celebrate." - Edwin Thumboo

---

UNMADE BED

I have become
a foreigner
in my own home,
padding past an
unmade bed
someone else had
slept on, then
examining things
I used to think
I needed.
In the living room,
I observe the inert
body of my father
on the sofa as if
from behind
a velvet rope,
fascinated by his
stillness; not dead,
yet not quite alive.
Next, I scrutinize
the hallway as if
I am standing at
the scene of a crime,
except there is no
body sprawled across
the white of the floor
over a growing pool
of blood, its vague
outline delineated
by chalk; perhaps,
the body has already
been removed and
I am really its spirit,
trapped between the past
and that other place.



AFLOAT IN A DRESS TOO LARGE

There is a road behind
the eyes and the long-suffering
smile, long and winding,
but leading nowhere.

It starts from the path
behind this house,
one that runs into
the woods, disappearing into
an imagined horizon.

Mother sits in front
of the television everyday,
afloat in a dress too large
for her body, fanning herself
with a magazine, feigning contentment.

And father moves sadly about
the living room, arranging,
re-arranging books on the shelves,
sometimes remembering to take one of them
down, even pretending to read it.

None of them remember the picture
on the wall, the one taken at their
wedding, where they stood before a church,
smiling weakly, resigned to the
cheap gown and the undersized tuxedo,
ensnaring both their bodies.

There is a road behind this house.
I can see it from my bedroom window,
disappearing into the trees,
leading nowhere.


- Cyril Wong (Copyright 2000)