Elegy

The earth shattered with ash.
We walked on brick and I imagined
the lick, the flash, the sudden,
hedge-rowed orange of flapping
tents become mandarins.

You offered me water. I declined.
I had my own and I wasn’t sure
if you did. I offered you numbers
to call, said your home would be
back in three weeks, so wait.

The road unearthed with dreams,
the sky unwound with femurs,
the water mottled with green,
the rivers broken like fevers.

In the end I bought my ticket
when the price dipped online,
Then it was ash, it was orange
it was dreams, it was a fever of dreams,
it was femurs and fevers of dreams
it was femurs and fevers of green
it was a year in the blip of rumours
and though I asked a possible god
why he sleeps well and still
you don’t, I am now here
and you are still you.

Christian Yeo