Bernice Chauly

If we do not love each other
how come the thought of you dissolves me, like sorrow?
like the world being poured back into a dead lake
bereft yet congenial

Perhaps love is a burden, devoid of simplicity
perhaps you would have been bored by happiness
you would have found it dull

Is your home in St. Gilles
I imagine an etymologist's study
the stag beetle I gave you, placed on a promontory
facing a wall of books, other framed dead beetles

I need to write you out of me
like a diminishing carapace of dots and lines

And after a few sips of whiskey
I no longer think of you.
...

Vindula dejone erotella
Delias oraia
Urania leilus
Grapium sarpedon
Appias nero figulina

Papa
I repeat the names of common Malayan butterflies
from the book that used to be on the long white shelf
in our house in Taiping, where my memories begin

Papa
I fear I will never recover
I know this kind of love begins and ends with flowers
not words, not alcohol, not tears
not even sadness

Papa
I am tired of the earth
I remember catching butterflies - they lived
for a while in tall glass bottles and once, a green Mino tin
slowly their wings faded and turned
into mellow dust, collecting ites
like unwelcome strangers
into a dark world

Papa
I remember the orange and brown bedcover
prickly to the touch, my green pinafore and sunflower curtains
Ah Kong standing in his white shorts
wondering where you are -
it has been forty years, since you left me
a child crying by the shattering sea -
I fear I have never recovered

I think I have outstayed my time
unlike you, there is no more mourning
there is no more darkening of the sky, of the
liver, throat and spleen, of in-between coloured boats
that ferry nightly metaphors to sweet darling madness

Papa
the birds and cicadas are asleep
the floods are gone
but the butterflies -
they still lie
awake, in
the garden.
...