When you are small enough, the world looks very different.
Tag: memory
Thank you for your service
In the half-light before dawn, Seventeen years before you were born, Boys stood half-waked on a parade square A hundred conscripts gathered there. One by one, to each in turn, Gun-metal was given, assigned to learn The ways to maim, to shoot, to kill All extensions of a nation's will. Then, as I cradled plastic… Continue reading Thank you for your service
land-line
In the dorm stairwell hung a public phone where each week I'd call home. Each call a litany of hellos and reports of health and weather, food and whether I had enough money as the phone burned pound coins per minute till I found international calling cards at the corner shop and talk became cheaper,… Continue reading land-line
present perfect
Let the past be because it can never be. Your mistakes have spoken hoarse my mistakes have replied. Turning back the clock breaks the mechanism inside. Background: I was sitting on a boat, travelling to Pulau Ubin, a small island north of the mainland of Singapore where my students were having a camp in the… Continue reading present perfect
Tracing an outline
It collects in pockets, on the edge of photo frames, the sediment of sentimentality. It gathers in the stillness of breath waiting for your finger, to trace an outline. Cleaning is an exercise in utility, every obliteration a momentary rejuvenation time-travelling back to before we were old, to before there was just dust. Background:… Continue reading Tracing an outline
