Jasmine Goh
Contributor Biography
Jasmine Goh is a recent graduate with a double degree in Law & Liberal Arts.
She enjoys food, film and fiction. Her poems have been published in the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, among others.
THIS GARDEN
“Movement restrictions aimed to stop the spread of the coronavirus may be making violence in homes more frequent, more severe and more dangerous.”
—The New York Times, April 6 2020
How do I tell you that I too have heard
the sound of flowers wrenched
from their roots, the slipping
petals of the day, the sunset turning
a bruised colour of lip? That I
know by heart the raw song
of coming back after being torched
dry? That mortal
as we are, the poison threading
through our bodies is without
cure? That this unusual silence
you hear is but night requiring critical
light? How do I cradle this broken
stem grieving relief without first
hiking through the overgrown weeds?
Lau Quanhan
Contributor Biography
Lau Quanhan is a teacher who loves literature as well as photography.
The Walk Out
Out of the carpark we walked,
trailing a memento music box.
By now, you would be someplace new,
smiling, politely telling Jesus softly
how clean and nice it is
after your own lovely way.
The neighbourhood didn't stir this
blue-skied August Wednesday
as one house marked by childhood years
emptied, then filled with homing thoughts
as we walked out of the carpark,
trailing a memento music box.
Auntie Alice
Your head bore fruit.
At first a grapefruit
which the good doctor
plucked when it was ripe,
dizzily, heavily pendent.
When more came
of your yielding crown
we tried to contain
the harvest till we simply couldn't
and
had to grace the
gestation
of a final offering,
fit for the fire.