A collection of poems written in and about Singapore — fatherhood, marriage, heat, transport, the textures of ordinary life, and what gets noticed when you pay attention.
The father stumbled. The son didn't.
Some would call me a dog. My name is Trevor.
She didn't make friends. I don't know what she made.
Flowers picked without her in mind, lifted from a bucket by the door.
The love that remains. And underneath it, very quietly, the fear.
All this time studying her complexity — and I wonder.
The bread broke them the way bread breaks: suddenly, and by hand.
One remembers who we were. The other waits to discover who we become.
Stumbling toward an emotion he can almost touch but can't quite name.
Old patterns return without asking, familiar as a room I haven't entered in years.
No memory of every wrong turn before this one.
He never asked for the water. It wouldn't have cost him anything.
He lights up. He still does that, still.
I do not tell them it is pretend. Not yet.
A window, found unlocked, swung open an inch.
The noise grew louder.
Not knowing, and being with your child anyway.
I don't know if that's when I peak, or if I already did.
We were all just told, by something, to be there.
He was never the one they meant by sent.
The canvas borrows a concept. The brushstroke borrows nothing.
The silence isn't sacred. It's subtracted.
Underneath every gift is a condition waiting to be found out.
He knew he had it all along.
In her school bag — full marks for listening comprehension.
He got as far as the door.
Lucky not me, he thinks.
Freezing, in great distress.
A joy that size can sound like grief. A grief that size can sound like joy.
A joy that size can sound like grief. A grief that size can sound like joy.
Can it go on and on — no one cares, because it's free.
No credentials. No vision. No QR code. Just sweet.
The billboard instructs. The leaflet says: think of me.
The badge glints.
I left with my son.
A sacrifice — he saw it from the start.
Moral education partially closed for repairs.
To be, for one hour, perfectly cool.
It smelled of rosin, faintly — someone had played this not long ago.
We are still looking.
A love with no weather in it.