guidelines on the use of common areas in housing development board estates

take the stairs at their words: scrimshaw,
scabland, rag and bone. take everything
the rust-kissed shopping cart
will rockabye: tarp blanket
settling new landscape, self portrait as blackened joss
tin, newsprint cairn, sole
bicycle wheel flayed to spoke.
speak of wisps sculpting
collars, slow exhale
of humid night air, labor sagging
damp down unshouldered sleeves. speak
to ghosts in the language of passing
through: crotchet rests bridging flip
flop thunderclaps, the body’s breeze spiriting dust. trace grime haloes
and count a saint for every skipped
step. saint stagnant water praying
in a buckled jasmine pot. saint raffia
gathering colander, half handle,
tugboat toy. saint pleather sofa
believing in another coming. believe
backwater stairways are living rooms
in waiting. this underfoot, flight. 

Nathaniel Chew (he/him) lives, writes and libraries in Singapore. His collection featherweight (2019) won the Golden Point Award for poetry in English, and his writing is published and forthcoming in anthologies by Gaudy Boy, Longbarrow Press, Math Paper Press, Poetry School, and in ArtsEquator, Pareidolia Literary, Practice, Research & Tangential Activities, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, et al.