Missing
He go to school.
Never come back.
I make police report.
Newspaper, Crime Watch.
They even put his picture,
He and the other boy,
On poster, with reward
From fast-food restaurant.
I ask from the RC man:
Can I have it from the
Lift lobby noticeboard.
He give me and also say sorry.
I have it in my bedroom.
Every morning with half-
Open eyes I remind myself
My son: the one on the left.
Got calls come in once.
Say they saw him in
Penang, selling videos.
Or in Bangkok, begging.
Child prostitute they say.
Sometimes no voice at all.
Hello? Hello? Who is this?
I am your son. Then hang up.
So many things to remember.
His school is still there.
I walk to it sometimes;
Pretend I am him.
Praying come kidnap me
Take me away now.
Got one artist try to draw
My son's grown-up face.
I ask him draw one
For every year. He say cannot.
Got one time I was on TV.
Crying, with schoolbag on my lap.
Keep saying, good boy, always help me
Do housework. Now I say let me
Do the housework. Let me wake up
To the mess he left behind.
By Alfian Sa'at
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MY BELLY
My belly is a flowerpot.
I sit here, cradling it
between my arms and it nestles
in the crooks of my elbows.
But I don’t like the way the flower looks, distended
and bulging. It is too big.
I could wrap it up
or cut a slit,
drain the extra sap from it —
but that would be cheating.
They tell me to take the flower pot
and run until the head, too heavy,
drops off — petal by red petal.
Still everyday I water this flower and I
can’t
stop.
— from Bursting Seams by Jollin Tan
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Grandmother Thng
You died when I was six. My peashoot mind
Broke into an empty flat. I had
To force the tears, so great was my disbelief;
So great my disbelief, so sternly firm
The ghastly coffin in the void-deck where
I dropped a magic pen into the drain
And the waters carried it away. I spurned
Your instructing comfort, soaking in my pain.
Your block's lifts always were in disrepair,
Dim, slow, a stink of stale urine in it.
You soothed me with a Milo and Marie
Biscuits. Your lips were full, too large, I thought,
For you to have been beautiful. You hit
Me lightly for my impudence, and brought
Red chillies from the kitchen. You loved me.
Most days we would wade through Chinatown.
I nibbled on a salted cabbage leaf
Fresh from the brine, moving from stall to stall,
Sometimes losing you; you were so round,
Your arm was like a leg of lamb, and all
Your samfoos were unsleeved. It was a relief
To sit down in a dim sum restaurant
And roll the tea-cups in the scalding water.
Or else we stopped beside the bamboo hag
With her pots of soup, I ready to dissent
If you asked me to drink a soup of gag
Of herbs or baby chick knob-winged at slaughter.
Some days we turned the corner to Temple Street,
The asphalt squeaking with dirty water, the crowd
Less hoar-haired. There you bought at sundries shops
Your favorite sng buay, which I couldn't eat
Because it was too sour. A few more stops
For medicine-hall powder or a loud
Exchange of words with a friend, in which you would lay
Your hand on me and claim me, “Ngor ge shuin”;
“Waah, lang jai” your friend would rejoin; and back
Up Neil Road we would trot. You used to say
First what a good boy I was, then switch tack
Bluntly, and though I made a face like a prune,
I would tread on your back to firmly massage
You. As you slept I crawled beneath your bed,
Trawling spiderwebs or playing at tents,
And rolled on it when you got up, or barraged
It with my weight, picking up the scent
Of Tiger Balm. Some days I quietly read
An Enid Blyton, or admired my aunt's
Books, a Lady Chatterley's Lover chief of them.
The woman on the Emma cover had
Your face: a plumpish one, with brows that danced,
And lines I would love to write, which greyly bred.
In the evening from work my parents came.
And after all these greening years I find
That I am no less salted by my grief,
Incapable of love still, heartworn, dead.
By Toh Hsien Min
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My Country and My People
My country and my people
are neither here nor there, nor
in the comfort of my preferences,
if I could even choose.
At any rate, to fancy is to cheat;
and, worse than being alien or
subversive without cause,
is being a patriot
of the will.
I came in the boom of babies, not guns,
a ‘daughter of a better age’;
I held a pencil in a school
while the ‘age’ was quelling riots
in the street, or cutting down
those foreign ‘devils’,
(whose books I was being taught to read).
Thus privileged I entered early
the Lion City’s jaws.
But they sent me back as fast
to my shy, forbearing family.
So I stayed in my parents’ house
and had only household cares.
The city remained a distant way,
but I had no land to till;
only a duck that would not lay,
and a runt of a papaya tree
which also turned out to be male.
Then I learnt to drive instead
and praise the highways till
I saw them chop the great trees down,
and plant the little ones;
impound the hungry buffalo
(the big ones and the little ones)
because the cars could not be curbed.
Nor could the population.
They built milli‐mini‐flats
for a multi‐mini‐society.
The chiselled profile of the sky
took on a lofty attitude,
but modestly, at any rate,
it made the tourist feel ‘at home’.
My country and my people
I never understood.
I grew up in China’s mighty shadow,
with my gentle, brown‐skinned neighbours;
but I keep diaries in English.
I sought to grow
in humanity’s rich soil,
and started digging on the banks, then saw
life carrying my friends downstream.
Yet, careful tending of the human heart
may make a hundred flowers bloom;
and perhaps, fence‐sitting neighbour,
I claim citizenship in your recognition
of our kind.
My people, and my country,
are you, and you my home.
By Lee Tzu Pheng
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