Cyril Wong (b. 1977)
SELECTED POEMS
Otter City
from otters on the bayfront
to green crested lizards
and the occasional mousedeer,
these fellow citizens are working
hard at play; unlike us,
playing hard at work,
hard at forgetting how to play.but let’s return to those otters—
our favourite, wouldn’t you
agree; how wonderful
if they were us in a future life—nibbling fish or one another,
rubbing up and rolling against
each other all morning
till afternoon; languid by
evening, as city lights judder
like hearts against the skin
of night’s translucent darkness,
bathing them in an electric glow.watch them go
home to their watery municipality—
how long have we been watching
with love and envy—
leaving us lovers and doubtful
urbanites to lumber back to the m.r.t.,
noting sporadically trees
we cannot name—tembusu
or angsana, we wished we knew—and that sudden, darting shrew
skirting us between office buildings.
those otters still
whirling through our minds—
our date complete; not just
with each other
but with a whole republic
of life thrumming beneath our feet.
by Cyril Wong
first published in The Nature of Poetry (2019, ed. Edwin Thumboo, Eric Tinsay Valles)
