You who stand in the red dust
know that frogs no longer croak for rain.
Bare ground cracks across remains of drains,
windows in the taman-taman gape-broken
and houses semi-detach, uprooting terraces.
Absence is only flaking paint.
Blown away are the dry leaves
the tailorbird ravelled and no one
now see swallows swoop Sungai Jernih.
What estate did Colonel Henry Gough plant?
Rubber trees went under final cuts.
A Chinese-Malaysian living in London, L Kiew works as a charity sector leader and accountant. She holds a MSc in Creative Writing and Literary Studies from Edinburgh University. Her debut pamphlet The Unquiet was published by Offord Road Books in 2019. She was longlisted in the 2019 National Poetry Competition and was a 2019/2020 London Library Emerging Writer. L Kiew is finalising her first collection. You can find her on Twitter @l_kiew and on Instagram @l_kiew.