Image: Superfamous

Gerline Lim

1. Yong Tau Foo

Cut up the triangles and feed me
like a fishball in Ah Ma's laps so she
could fit me her love swinging
from the morning market drenched
in sweet red sauce, dense
as the burnt smell of dancing red ants
uncle collected in a pot, hot
like the cane strokes Ah Gong bestowed
upon us because we dared to infuriate
his name which is huo (火) -
torching us all yet we deny
his wick in us, too quick like him
to jump on anyone
who gets under our skin,
scorching us all until Ah Ma
loosened her smooth skin each time
to wrap us snug

2. Ngoh Hiang

like a ngoh hiang
in bean curd skin;
cut in straight line
like it should be. 
Under the heat,
now a curl;
now creases,
puffed in my mouth 
to the roof, crumbling 
home. Now weightless,
but is it?
Only the meat of it left,
minced by Ah Ma's fingers
which are my mother's.
Their arms measuring time with spots
as they still stand side by side, 
by the narrow stove which 
could not fit me until 
their absence stretched wide
enough for me to look across the oceans
and between their shoulders 
at my fingers

3. I refuse to draw lines

which my father said
were meant for desk-bound jobs
which would never fail to bind me
if there was a long line across my palm.
Instead there was just a short curve
meeting the spaces 
between my fingers. Spaces
that foretold the absence 
of a fortune, looking like the blank 
between the cookie's lips
which I flipped and out 
an O escaped, circling me 
back to the spaces so I 
will not stop between my lines 
in order to arrive at the dumpling skin.

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Gerline Lim is a Singaporean living in Germany who sometimes misses her playground in the east side.