Illustration by Louisa Tsui
The net that presses against
your skin,
made from thin, steel fibres
leaving an imprint only
when you push up against it.
We have spent most of our
lives, unaware of its existence.
If I worked quietly with a cutter on
this side of the net
to make the smallest opening
I do not think I would be
able to wrestle you out.
I, too, have left people.
All I have left is to slip small,
folded pieces of paper through
the mesh of the net.
I curl each missive, push a
series of them through.
They are read in unconnected
fragments. Perhaps, you will
take each of them, lay them
flat on the ground, rearrange
them in ways that make
sense to you.
I can only remind you
that I remember. That
I am trying for accuracy,
no, truth.
On this side, the net glitters.
Joanne Leow is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Saskatchewan. Her poetry and creative non-fiction have been published in Catapult Magazine, Quarterly Literary Review of Singapore, Little Things: An Anthology of Poetry (Ethos Books), and the now defunct Junoesq. She grew up in Singapore.
Illustration by Louisa Tsui