Cramming for exams Struggling to keep awake Heaps of black coffee

Baptism ritual A forty-five-year old me In a swimming pool.

Down the sloppy track we went for swim in the sea Allure of Hick’s Bay.

Fifty nine years old Too young to be an orphan God so loved my mum.

Put on a brave front But soon reality hit home My facade crumbled.

A handwritten note Inviting me to join them In fear I burned it. P/S The note was trying to convince me to join the communist movement in the early 1970s when I was in lower secondary school at Kai Chung Middle School in Bintangor.

My old Chinese book Finding my pinyin writing In the book’s margins.

Watching films for free In the town’s Eastern Theatre Childhood Bintangor.

Montreal in winter At minus thirty degrees My hair stiff with ice.

Received a caning Witnessed by the entire school My whole world crumbled.