Author's Notes
On the title
In Singapore, peak hours means the MRT at 8am — you are where the system expects you to be. The poem uses it the other way. The Rail Corridor before nightfall, the museum on a Tuesday morning: these places are best precisely when I cannot be there. The hours that suit them are the hours I've already given away.
What I didn't write directly
There are things that make the Tuesday morning walk feel less optional than it used to. The poem knows this. I left it there, in the lines about the corridor and the hours I've already given away.
The real question
What I envy about the retiree in the museum isn't his age. It's the calibration — his schedule has finally synced with the world's. I am still offset. And I'm starting to understand that offset is not temporary. It shifts. The form changes. But something is always claiming you.
I don't know if I already peaked in a room I wasn't paying attention to. I can't rule it out. If it's true, I wouldn't have known — I would have thought it was ordinary. The poem is about that. The rest is timing.
Singapore · 2026