The Poets of Singapore: Alfian Sa'at

Plaza Singapura

Two men talk.

Eyes hope for the sign of a gleam
In the other's, like a first star.

Words unravel and hiss like steam.
Speech a civil noise among tongues
Burnt by strange tribal welts of longing.

A nod, a smile, a switch is flicked.
They look at each other, naked light bulbs.
The heart white-hot, filament-thin.

Caresses in the stairwell.

Each sigh echoing, a child tumbling down the steps.
Fear the ecstatic engine of their gropes.
Their kisses so famished it is almost incestuous.

And long, long after the footsteps
Of families ebbing outside,
The grindstone mill of perambulators,
Housing doll-eyed babies shaking their rattles,
After the washing-machine pride of wives,
And the nail-polish vanitiy of girlfriends,
That parade beyond sealed door,

They hold each other, still in fear,
But this time of themselves in,
Or simply losing, their shipwrecked embrace.
Grateful somehow, when pried apart
By what is not shame, not fultility,
That they had avoided the territories
On each other's skin,
That could have singed them with love,
Or even its pale embers.