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.

Bloodsucker

It was Wednesday when the welts first bloomed.
A neat row across your chest. Blood specking
each dark heart. Our bedsprings sang a new
sickening tune. Whiffs of raspberry rot slinked
in like languid houseguests. I got on my knees,

tapped door frames, furniture legs for echoes
of cavernous colonies. Boiled our pastel sheets
clean of roses. The bites came again, snaking
their way down your navel. I stripped you
naked at the door, beat out musk from

your clothes, eggs latched in seams. We slept
with all the lights on, a machine rattling
ultrasound. You worked late. Each night
spent with me grew shorter than the last.
Bites girdled your pelvis. I strapped on a mask

pulled apart the plump jowls of your favourite
armchair. Left the dog with the neighbours.
Then, our marital bed—tipped out twenty years
of conjugal bliss to the rag and bone man.
Stored the change he gave me in a tin.

You moved out. “Darling,” insecticide noosed
my throat, "Are you still haunted by nymphs?"
Your absence fumed through our flat,
scouring all the rooms. I opened the windows.
Began anew. I never once found a bite on me.

Museum of Aborted Romance

Here is a place we may abandon
artefacts from Loves that never
finished gestation. Their cords cut
before they grew full-bodied enough
to wrestle with our half-made minds.

Here is a collection of not-quite tragedies.
A fridge of hearts with stumps for wings
frozen in a state of readying. Beyond
the danger sign, a closet of chimeras
spliced from best parts of old lovers.

In the basement, file away projections of
tenderness in his gaze, frisson from her
accidental graze of flesh. A seismograph charts
early tremors with tiny arcs. Nothing erupts.
Teetering tapes of late-night conversations

unspool from too many rewinds. Cabinets sigh
with sheaves of overanalyses. Through the haze,
a shrine of cards and gifts selected for ambiguous
intent. On calendars, circled in lipstick red,
dates forever inchoate. Overhead, a map lights up

all the stars we must have crossed. In a box, 
locked, tools of romance's abortion: reason's
trump card, insidious tripwires into friendship,
catatonia from a broken heart, cold showers
the morning after, vulnerability's proud ramparts.

By the exit, you will find
a bin of battered mobile phones
aglow with his final text,
her hanging line...
Leave yours behind.

No. 436

On the morning of his death
I unclasp his shackles.
I let him walk in front of me.

There is a certain weight, the body
takes before it gives itself to air—
I see this in the leaden slump
of his shoulders, the lumber
of his unhindered feet.

Last night, I measured out the precise
length required to bear his mass.
At the pale curve of his nape,
I discovered a small constellation of moles
that a woman must know by heart.

I fasten the coarse braid, a necklace.
His pulse thrums through my quickening
fingers. I turn him away from me
and tenderly veil his face.

I pull the lever, with the practiced reverence
of a soldier hoisting a flag to mast.
I do not stop, until I feel him above me—
hooded and pendulous.

Notes from a Colonialist, 2065

After the Seas drained, the Island
uncovered itself—a godless ark held
aloft by three cenotaphs, a thousand
last breaths frosting the windows.
A thousand necks cocked, aghast, at
the coming of the Waves. A whole city,

metal and glass, prostrating before
the Bay, flogged by chastising currents.
Between buckled knees of buildings, earth
cleaves like knifed butter. Underground,
arteries clogged with consumerism—recurring
shop signs blare at every turn, the same sodden

bakeries with east-west confections, murky bubble
tea shops. Still, the air is hungry with ghosts— 
strike a match and watch it swallowed whole.
Everywhere, signs of a Country screaming
against its own obituary—We are a Nation
of implausible origin. A Nation built on

SURVIVAL. A People with RESILIENCE
coursing through iron veins. The dead
clench merlion amulets in fists, lips
pruning around emptied oxygen tanks.
The desperate have slit their cheeks with gills, 
spliced spines to flaccid fins. Pillars of

sea salt turn crumbling backs to carrion.
At the Island's heart, its only legacy—freshwater 
reservoirs churn bullishly under glass domes.
Trees nest within trees, noises within noises.
Last night, I heard the mangroves murmur. I slipped
off my boots and felt soil curl awake—a sure sign

Life shall again, sustain itself. The harbour
here is sheltered and deep. Send ships.

Post-Apocalyptic Love

The city is seismic. Beneath us,
roads are ripping apart
like wounds. Magma tears
through scabs of asphalt,
catching our ankles

in throbbing pools. The horizon
breaks a jagged grin,
light shatters clenched jaws
of concrete. Comets singe
stubborn skeletons of trees.

We knew this world would never hold us.
And so we were unfazed when it caved
in on itself—the sky bucking under
the weight of primordial metals.

Our shapes barely graze the grey that shrouds us.
The stars are spiralling emptily into orbit
and there is no one else, but shadows 
seared on our eyelids, as we dream

of things no imploding universe may take:
the wings of a breath as it hovers on skin,
a heartbeat reaching for its echo through bone,
the taste of lips untouched by fluorescence,
our hands, bruised, from holding each other.

Visit to the Yakult Factory, 1995

Our names both began with “A”, so we had
to hold hands. You said the same bacteria
in our shit was found in Yakult. The way
you said “shit” made me giddy with laughter.
You squeezed my wrist, so we would not
be shushed. We shuttled down factory lines,

women in hairnets and masks, eyes bright with
automation. Under the microscope, tiny rods
wriggled then bloomed in blues and purples.
Later we ditched straws, slipped foil tops off
and slung the liquid down. I imagined
our intestines lighting up with neon gardens

bouquets of cells watered by milky elixir
beginning an interminable dance, spinning into
trillions. On the bus back, your sweaty palms
melted into my sticky fingers. I could only think of
our bacteria swirling and dividing, yours becoming
mine. I had to lick my hand to make it my own again.

by Amanda Chong
from Professions (2016)

 

SELECTED POEMS: “Lamentations” >