For Sam
You talked about the light
hung at the end of the pier
being muzzled by dense fog,
but I saw a suspension bridge
ending in cloud, such that
it wasn’t clear if the bridge
cut through the cloud or if
the cloud cut into the bridge,
which connected the dots
to my advice on eradicating
the ants in your apartment
by tracing their trail to its start
and fogging it with perfume
just there so that the ants,
finding their pheromones
overwhelmed by wall cloud,
would not know whether
forging straight ahead
would be praised as bravery
and rewarded with cranberries
and almonds, or if it would
find a whorled pink sky
falling from the heavens,
or that other discovery,
of only irreversible loss
of known direction.
Hsien Min Toh has published four books of poetry,
most recently Dans quel sens tombent les feuilles
(Paris: Éditions Caractères, 2016). His other recent
publication credits include apt, PN Review,
Poetry Salzburg Review and SAND Journal. He lives in
Singapore, where he edits the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore.
Featured Image: Untitled by Carla Hernández Ramírez