Gwee Li Sui (b. 1970)
SELECTED POEMS
Yonsei Lake
The minutes marched to a stop. Then
it did not matter if the earth rolled on
or left us behind in a crack of time.
That night, we witnessed an eternity
stretched on a canvas lit by stars.
Its face was awash with colours strung
in silver, moving from nowhere to
nowhere. The murmurs of humankind
were kept at the gate of horn while,
far away, the fires of this world burned
like dying matchsticks. It was here that
we set ourselves in some magic circle,
an old shamanic dream. We stood
before an archive of places: an abyss,
the world's end, the lake of forgetfulness,
a site known by so many names
we could no longer tell where it was.
We were insects on this giant rock
of time, two faces in life's variety,
also two faces of our own. We stood
before this truth, our bodies entwined:
we did not dare count beyond one.
by Gwee Li Sui
from One Thousand and One Nights (2014)
