Amanda Chong (b. 1989)
SELECTED POEMS
All Our Clocks
5
We were always running on different clocks.
Lost in the trance of signboards fluttering
their eyes open to fresh destinations,
leaping into carriages as doors stuttered close.You charged through a clash of schedules,
and caught me in the window
of a passing train: only seconds before
the gasp of speed drew a whistle from air.4
For you, a kernel of a second is all it takes
for the Soul to leap in recognition
of its long-lost half. To pulse in morse,
to steer the stubborn ship of the Body
into a course of certain collision.
To exuberate in flags dashes dots:
Here! You're safe. I'm here.But Love must brew over a thousand
years, in penitence and rebirth, dull
lifetimes as rocks. All to churn
tide in our favour, turn wind
toward sail, to winnow infinity into
a singular possibility—our heads
falling on the same pillow.3
Sleep does not come to me, so I sit
sentinel over yours, tuned to
the nocturnal hum of your body,
vein-blue vibrations plumbing under skin.
I imagine you going silent—orbs
of blood held in suspension, downy
hairs on your cheeks turning waxen.The seam between us spreads,
becomes a heaviness hung
across two islands, a cloud
I cannot scry. I sharpen my longing
for you into a dart—piercing
an emptiness so thunderous
that when I finally slip
to sleep, I leave all doors ajar.2
What did I ever say to you that hadn't yet
been said in the history of love?
Tripping proclamations of teenagers
tossed from candy-pink balconies,
furtive professions in alleys—lips laced
with liquor, blaspheming in bed,
silence wisping around us
as we shrug off our silhouettes.I am counting down now:
hollow nothings spoken to seal
igneous rifts, the last rubbed-down
token of affection in pockets
of the married. Those desperate slurrings
of need—don't leave. Words the loved
and their lovers so often abuse—
here, forever, trust, truth.1
Our mistake was believing
this time was our turn,
that time was ours to turn.All around us, time's rubble—
stilled quartz, slackened springs,
a constant ticking in my bones:my memories outrunning
the past, transmuting into
stormy prophecies of our end.If the flutter of a second hand
should take us to a different life,
I will know the way to you by heart,certain as the comings and goings
of a train. But now, before our dials
run down and we pulse to black,look me in the eye and savour
how extraordinary our hour.
by Amanda Chong
from Professions (2016)
