Cyril Wong

Mine

For at least a minute
at dawn when our bed
is missing you, I ask,
What story is this?
Other times: Why am I
back here? Always
in the midst of waiting
for a hundred shoes
to drop. I half-forgot
those trees with yellow
flowers outside, basking
as if from insight; that old
man downstairs whose laugh
has become my alarm
clock. I pretend that this
is still my story to tell.

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Cyril Wong is a Singapore Literature Prize-winning poet and fictionist. His most recent collection of poems was The Lover’s Inventory (Math Paper Press, 2015).