Leong Liew Geok (b. 1947)
SELECTED POEMS
Free Spirits
A student and his girlfriend sitting
On concrete at the furthest end
Before their ledge turns a corner of the building,
Are learning ways of sharing.
They play with what looks like a pink
Feathered toy, ruffling and passing
It between themselves. She talks into a phone
And he kisses her hair, her left ear, her cheek.
Saddled over his knees, her legs cross his;
As they rock their legs, she smiling at him,
He slides both arms around her waist,
Kissing her lips, her cheek, her nose.
He opens a text he's pulled out of his bag:
Swiftly, they bend over a page or two, laughing
And as she writes on paper poised on thighs,
He feeds her something—sweet or preserved?
Which he too eats, but keeps kissing
And kissing. At the end of the ledge
Which hugs each floor outside our offices,
Five storeys up, they wrap arms around each other,
Looking out over rain trees and the car park, to the sea.
However they lean, they remain in perfect line
With my window. There, they feel safe from the whole
Old world blind to Cloud Nine. She is patting
His neck, touching his hair; returning, he drops
Head to rest on her bosom. She hugs him
And he, her: enveloped, inseparable, offering
An accidental voyeur, their poem.
by Leong Liew Geok
from Women Without Men (2000)
