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Poems on the MRT

All Our Clocks by Amanda Chong

 

5
We were always running on different clocks.
Lost in the trance of signboards fluttering
their eyes open to fresh destinations,
leaping into carriages as doors stuttered close.

You charged through a clash of schedules,
and caught me in the window
of a passing train: only seconds before
the gasp of speed drew a whistle from air.

4
For you, a kernel of a second is all it takes
for the Soul to leap in recognition
of its long-lost half. To pulse in morse,
to steer the stubborn ship of the Body
into a course of certain collision.
To exuberate in flags dashes dots:
Here! You're safe. I'm here.

But Love must brew over a thousand
years, in penitence and rebirth, dull
lifetimes as rocks. All to churn
tide in our favour, turn wind
toward sail, to winnow infinity into
a singular possibility—our heads
falling on the same pillow.

3
Sleep does not come to me, so I sit
sentinel over yours, tuned to
the nocturnal hum of your body,
vein-blue vibrations plumbing under skin.
I imagine you going silent—orbs
of blood held in suspension, downy
hairs on your cheeks turning waxen.

The seam between us spreads,
becomes a heaviness hung
across two islands, a cloud
I cannot scry. I sharpen my longing
for you into a dart—piercing
an emptiness so thunderous
that when I finally slip
to sleep, I leave all doors ajar.

2
What did I ever say to you that hadn't yet
been said in the history of love?
Tripping proclamations of teenagers
tossed from candy-pink balconies,
furtive professions in alleys—lips laced
with liquor, blaspheming in bed,
silence wisping around us
as we shrug off our silhouettes.

I am counting down now:
hollow nothings spoken to seal
igneous rifts, the last rubbed-down
token of affection in pockets
of the married. Those desperate slurrings
of need—don't leave. Words the loved
and their lovers so often abuse—
here, forever, trust, truth.

1
Our mistake was believing
this time was our turn,
that time was ours to turn.

All around us, time's rubble—
stilled quartz, slackened springs,
a constant ticking in my bones:

my memories outrunning
the past, transmuting into
stormy prophecies of our end.

If the flutter of a second hand
should take us to a different life,
I will know the way to you by heart,

certain as the comings and goings
of a train. But now, before our dials
run down and we pulse to black,

look me in the eye and savour
how extraordinary our hour.

Published in Professions (2015)

Amanda Chong is a lawyer trained in Cambridge and Harvard who explores themes of gender and power in her work as a writer. Her poetry collection, Professions was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018. Her poetry has been engraved on the Marina Bay Helix Bridge and included in the Cambridge International GCSE syllabus. Her plays include the one woman show Psychobitch which sold out its extended run (Wild Rice, 2023), the musical The Feelings Farm (Esplanade, 2021) and the award-winning #WomenSupportingWomen (T:>Works, 2022). Her work has been staged in Cambridge, UK and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

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Poems on the MRT is an initiative by the National Arts Council, in partnership with SMRT and Stellar Ace. Produced by Sing Lit Station, a local literary non-profit organisation, this collaboration displays excerpts of Singapore poetry throughout SMRT’s train network, integrating local literature into the daily experience of commuters. Look out for poems in English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil in trains on the East-West, North-South and Circle Lines, as well as videos created by local artists and featuring local poets in stations and on trains. The Chinese, Malay, and Tamil poems are available in both the original languages and English. To enjoy the full poems, commuters may read them on go.gov.sg/potm.

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