Cheryl Julia Lee, Singapore
In the places where people turn into seals
the way you and I turn a year older, I find space
for my longing. Keening took of me and in me,
and I took to it. This note that first seemed holy
and despicable proved banal finally.
And what is banal is also acute speech:
the torment of a country road, a tree, evening;
the gleam of a love once lived, however brief;
the guarded canon of the heart and its necessities.
And the sea, the sea, the swollen, swelling sea.
I stand knee-deep in this dark blue. Look—
it holds me so well.
Cheryl Julia Lee is an Assistant Professor with the English department at Nanyang Technological University, and critical editor of prose.sg. Her poetry collection, We Were Always Eating Expired Things, was published in 2014, and was nominated for the Singapore Literature Prize. Her other creative work can be found in QLRS, Icarus, and Prick of the Spindle, among others.
