Euginia Tan
Contributor Biography
Euginia Tan is a Singaporean writer who writes poetry, creative non-fiction and plays. She enjoys cross-pollinating art into multidisciplinary platforms and reviving stories. Contact her at eugtan@hotmail.com.
patio
the patio had
four white chairs
encircling a white table
the chairs were flimsy
a wind would rouse
a chair would be flung
the sound of a house
in shambles
we each had our moments on that patio
my father with a beer can
sometimes a guitar
like a werewolf, the half formed howl
of heartbreak in his hey days
my mother with her work
her guests, her need to entertain
to be her best
me, with my colouring pencils
and note paper, the bully of a wind
unsettling my childhood scrawls
the tumble of a chair heavy as
my mother’s body hitting the floor
my father’s punch
ripe as a fruit
fallen from a tree
po po’s inbox
when po po was alive
she would ask me to “wash her phone”
meaning, to delete messages in her inbox.
she never read them, she said
if they were really important,
someone would call.
washing her phone, i found
laundry messages of adverts,
friends of hers who might have
also just purchased a phone,
relatives who wanted to share
philosophy, shrunken to a text.
i kept that phone when she died
and everyone knew it was important
that she was calling, going silent when
they heard my voice on the other line,
allowing for grief to dry naturally
as wet clothes do, no matter the forecast
Noel Sloboda
Contributor Biography
Noel Sloboda is the author of two poetry collections and six chapbooks. He has also published a book about Edith Wharton and Gertrude Stein. Sloboda teaches at Penn State York.
Morning in Freiburg
It can’t be love this early
that imbues shop girls
with such lambent grace.
Behind glass swirling with Fraktur
they pay me no mind as I lurch
across medieval cobbles,
my left heel troubled by a pebble
unknowingly smuggled
across international borders.
One fräulein frets over strudel
turning them this way and that
till frosted glaze glistens
like starlight on the sea.
Another inspects chocolate tortes
searching for blemishes
in sleek, obsidian skins.
A third delicately spreads fritters
as if they were bones of a saint
with power to tell the future.
Each tender muse acts
with such care, as if prepping the feast
for her wedding day—
cheeks dappled with fire
better suited for nighttime
rites of devotion. Smitten
by passion for the perishable
I grow hungry for the day ahead
and as I bend to empty my shoe
fatigue rolls from my shoulders
disappearing into the Bächle
along with yesterday’s rain.
The Mummy in Art Therapy
I yearn to make sense
of what was and will be
life in acrylic, after being rudely
awakened from eons of slumber
only to find everyone
I grew up with entombed
in the bottom of an hourglass.
But apples in my natures mortes
look flat as parchment
and the subtlety of fingers
proves impossible to capture
even when my model stays
still as a sphinx. Still,
something inside me stirs
when I make a self-portrait
and before I know it
I have fashioned a new tribe:
a series of selves on canvas.
At first I think it is the illusion
of order imposed by lines
of bandages holding me together.
Later, though, I find myself
falling in love with protean likenesses—
fresh daubs of color spattered
over an off-white backdrop
making each new version of me
the oldest rainbow in the world.
Song of the Fallen Hive
Listen: we are still alive
even if all our labors have been
undone. Nor will this be
the last exquisite wreckage.
Limbs will snap in tempests.
Skunks seeking sweetness
will tear cells asunder.
Palaces grander than the one lost
will be converted to tombs.
But every story of eclipse ends
with light; nectar yet remains
to be sucked from flowers.
So follow your queen now:
take up wings strewn about
like flower petals in November.
Lash them to banded backs—
black as a moonless night
and golden as a sunbeam—
and climb higher than ever before.
Strive to reach a tomorrow
when we might together contrive
to fashion another home,
fill new chambers with drones
of the world’s first gardeners
and celebrate those who survive.
Author's Note:
"Morning in Freiburg" previously appeared in Silk Road.
"The Mummy in Art Therapy" previously appeared in Pilgrimage.
"Song of the Fallen Hive" previously appeared in Pudding.