there, tucked away beneath
the eaves of the porch:
my grandmother. loud
splatters of rain on zinc
plates, my thick black
hair falling to earth beside
pebbles and puddles. she
was still, so still while i
winced my ear away
in fear of the blade’s
incisiveness. i saw her
in the mirror; her hands
on my shoulder. still.
some years later, long
past trimmed fringes
and slanted sideburns,
my mother and i talk
about her after her passing.
we are still, still. how
the cracks in the ground
hold not my hair, nor hers
but indelible markers
of unfaltering steps, with
half-torn shoes and
ribbed garments; she
is there, has always been,
snipping away stray strands,
feeding with these still hands.
remembering that, i say,
see how you will not
hear me bemoan storms,
gnash my teeth in rain,
trace the steps of years lost:
i like her am standing, still.
Brian Lee is an aspiring writer and poet from Singapore, whose works are published or forthcoming in Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine and Corvus Review. Having grown up in three different countries, he writes in an attempt to recreate and remember.