Tilting Our Plates To Catch The Light
(Firstfruits, 2007)

"(H)is recent work strikes boldly into new territory. Tilting Our Plates emphasizes the musicality of poetry rather more than his previous collections, while taking as its core a love story between two shape-shifting Hindu deities."
- TIME (Asia Edition)

"Wong's writing takes you out of your armchair and into his apartment, where he opens up his heart and life for all the world to see...Wong writes of a love that knows no boundaries and transcends time and death...the kind of love perhaps we all secretly long for."
- IS Magazine

"Riffs on Hindu mythology are interspersed with glimpses into what draws and knots people together. Don't read this sitting down. It is such an intense experience that you will want to pace about to its music."
- The Sunday Times

Listed by The Sunday Times as one of the best five books of 2007

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GRAVE

The lovers are taking it slow. They are drawing out
the days of nothingness, making them last.

Who will be the first to go? Who dares to answer
such questions? The lovers in church are praying

only for each other. They are tracing the edge
of the shore with their footprints. What have they

done that they have not yet been forgiven for?
There is still time to replace the curtains,

to oil the gate so it may close again without
crying. Now is the moment. The lovers know this

as they head home now, evening drawing
their bodies closer, slowing their steps

at a momentous pace, as words fold away
into the spaces even memory cannot reach.



[untitled]

Here between the country
that will not remember our love
and the sea, our clothes spill

like sand from a tilted
palm. Then we are walking
arm in arm. We are gazing

in the same, unwavering direction.
There is no need to mourn
for what we have left behind.

Look as our footprints
evaporate when we approach
the chiming of waves, waves

rising and tugging at us like joy.
This is not an ending
and time has not been

unkind. We reach the edge
of our lives. We stop in awe
of how much further we have to go.

- Cyril Wong (Copyright 2007)