stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples:
for I am sick of love.
—Song of Solomon, 2:5 KJV
perhaps scatter the scarred breadcrumbs far and few
between and the trail will seem shorter every day
is a desert waylaid in the back of my throat
prickly-pear me into sustenance this body is betrayal
look at these protesting joints my one weeping eye these
allergies swelling my voice shut
I think often about taking a long trek
on short notice maybe I wouldn’t like the
sand much but I’d find it easier to be, there
unhampered the moon unhinged the coyotes all
those wayward symbols of death buzzards not
so easy made corporeal gifts given short shrift
when we get everything we want which is now
the first thing embroiled in happenstance and
the brilliance of firelight stoking menace
find me a perfect stone upon which to rest my head
no other crutch smooth just as wisdom is a wine
milky battered and perhaps sheltering a serpent
we come here to bleach our bones in unerring light
such that everything crumbles returned to me
various heaving heavinesses spilt salt across a dark stain spreads
under the single-minded glaring eye of horus
I don’t dare bring my feeble doubts no longer
the pacing only the being
still a feat
Marylyn Tan is a queer, female, Chinese Singaporean, linguistics graduate,
poet, and artist, who has been performing and disappointing since 2014.
Her first volume of poetry, GAZE BACK (Singapore Literature Prize 2020,
Lambda loser), is the lesbo Singaporean trans-genre witch grimoire you
never knew you needed. Her work trades in the conventionally vulgar,
radically pleasurable, and unsanctioned, striving to emancipate the
marginalised and restore the alienated, endangered body. She is the founder
of multidisciplinary arts collective DIS/CONTENT (hellodiscontent.carrd.co).