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The Preparation
by Jason Wee
I’m ready to vote
for the pines but the
referendum lists only
the differences between
this system of surveillance
and two others.
I’ve asked, my questions
among the blossoms
in an about-to-burn field
or, how does one squirm
away from cheery
injunctions with teeth shut, to
reply you made possible
an utterance this
side of unwilling
yet set free? They can
pick their bouquet from
any adjacent field, I
cast myself for,
and into, the charred stems,
the wetland, the clap-call.
*
Not pulling back the welcome
mat but the surprise
when your front window
breaks, the unnerved talk
of truth as never without
unjust cause, but how
do you spell
authoritarianism
without asia, or will,
given the atavic ore
we tore our now for,
the strength heard in speech
upon “I’ll protect” speech
be the exit of
a limping king or a
scene, pleasuring yourself
to find your hand in
the mirror stroking a
chimp? When should I walk
away? When does nothing ...
remain, replace the pane.
*
Isn’t that I cannot see
the lit path back, mud-
caked shrapnel, debris
blasted from the meeting of
will and resistance,
but another sight,
a wish yet-spoken I held
like a cure, full, on
its outstretched spoon.
Hearing is the last
sense to go, or a corpse
held down its way with words,
a gift-wave transmitting your
wish to its inner
ear, not live but leave
not again but forever.
I put my lips to
this dead earth. A wave.
*
The board by the lift
to my apartment
refreshes with new by-laws,
space's the crux, its scarcity
for others means watch-
words, nouns drowned by their
covert weight, of hills
razed into shores, of bit tongues.
Courtesy is for
free claims one poster.
As for the self, how much was
it for, it the grains
my built dreams tremble on,
the fact buried by
the omitted, for this?
*
Flags drape off every
porch and parapet.
Posters, in bold, ‘this country
the ship that keeps us
safe’. Declarations
legible everywhere
and no evidence.
I tried to talk but
ears turn faster than questions.
I run from those who say
they love me. They say
that a lot. I run hard.
Jason Wee is an artist and a writer. He is an editor at Softblow poetry journal. He's edited numerous books, including Boring Donkey Songs, by Lee Wen, and SQ21:Singapore Queers in the 21st Century. He lives between New York and Singapore.