A Kind of Hush by Cyril Wong

Silent again, we begin to hear
noises in our heads, swelling

to overwhelm the sound of our
breathing. If we are silent for

long enough, something would surface
from under the wind-troubled

faces of murky ponds
our minds have become.

All at once, ripples would flee
in a singular, outward direction-

these questions of guilt or blame.
Then what comes up for air

would be a different quiet
we keep drowning, pinning it

underwater in our pride until
its legs stop kicking.

Different because we may hear
the mirroring of fear and

a time-sharpened dependency
within it. Such a quiet we only

hear when we do not hear:
waking together, every meal,

sharing the same cab home.
Listen. Listen. My hand swims

into the bay area of your hand.
If we are silent for long enough,

we could start over.

Labels: Cyril Wong

Close All The Windows by Cyril Wong

After discovering the Internet,
my mother has trouble
finding a connection, and
calls me up for help
while I am at work.
We keep miscommunicating.

She has clicked open
so many windows
the computer threatens to hang.
And my logic runs out
of variations to explain
the same thing over
and over. Suddenly,

I imagine she is looking
for her future through
that glowing screen
and I am really helping her

to find back her life after
all her children have left
for new homes,
new families to love.
'What now?' she asks.

'Try again,' I reply, the phone
pressed to my ear. 'Close all
the windows. Tell me —
what do you see?'

Labels: Cyril Wong

Arrival by Cyril Wong

During our first few dates, we
scribbled our confessions on paper,

sending them like fast-forward
letters back and forth across the table.

Then you relented and taught me sign-
language, demonstrating how "like"

is the drawing forth of an invisible
string from the centre of your chest

like a loosened thread, freed from
the constraining fabric of your body,

while "love" is the crossing of
both arms in an act of self-defence

and a warning, or simply that "X"
which marks the point of arrival

upon the very treasure map of you.

Labels: Cyril Wong

Boats by Cyril Wong

You and your photographs of boats;
that repeated metaphor for departure,

or simply the possibility of a voyage?
What you cannot tell me, you tell me

with a vessel and its single passenger,
eyes fixed on some skylit conclusion.

Set apart and starkly upon a canvas
of tractable waves, brought to still

by the trigger-click of your camera,
like the sound a key makes when it

releases the lock. Your heart became
that lock; these images are how you have

always articulated distance, a withdrawal.
Darling, there are just as many ways

of saying goodbye as there are ways
of letting you go. The boat is narrow

like the width of my heart after
impossible loss, cruel resignation;

this heart you ride in. Love, if this is how
you choose to leave me, let me let you.

Labels: Cyril Wong