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Moving People With Words

Poems on the MRT

In the Time It Takes by Lawrence Ypil

 

In the time it takes for the shadow of the world
to reach the shadow of the knee
of the woman sitting in the park under a tree
a photograph is developed.

Drip, drip, splash.
Then alright.
Then a dry mount
against the wet, wet grass.

When the city's architects asked what could be done with the past,
they didn't anticipate glass. They believed the ocean
with its endless shimmer of always would make the dame denizens
of the city sick from squinting at the sea.

What reprieve the streets could be, what rain
falling endlessly from the eaves of shophouses
as a line of trees becomes the token gesture
nature makes to signify an elsewhere here
where a woman slowly rises to become the shadow of a shadow of me.

Published in Likhaan: The Journal of Contemporary Philippine Literature, 2018: Likhaan Commemorative Issue (2020)

Lawrence Lacambra Ypil is the author of Experiment of the Tropics, winner of the inaugural Gaudy Boy Book Prize and a finalist for the Lambda Awards. His work explores the intersection of photography, poetry, and history. He teaches creative writing at Yale-NUS College and NUS College.

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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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