Poem: Swollen Mouth Of The Storm

And the article says:

“Monsoon surge hits Singapore, bringing rain to all parts of the island”. 

My Ah Ma knew the rain.

She didn’t need a headline to know when the skies were coming. 

She knew by the crawl of the ants, 

by the furtive whispering of the clouds, 

by how the air thickened like soup on the stove.

See, the Monsoon was different then:

An exhale from a dying god’s breath, rain bleeding from her ribboned wings. 

Listen, my Ah Ma told me. 

Listen to the sound of the rain like stammered kisses on the back of your neck,

Listen to the languid crack of unhurried lightning that flashes, 

one, two, gone. 

There’s a quiet ache in a monsoon’s aftermath

the kind of dusk that slips beneath your shirt,

slick and slow as sweat tracing spine.

So much of rain is not about desire,

but surrender—

to the weight of the torrent collapsing into skin,

to the way the earth moans softly

under the press of bare feet

how for just a heartbeat the island holds its breath

And in the veneer of this congealed, wet, heat I see her– 

Ah Ma’s face, lines cascading like tributaries across her sandpaper skin

each line a riverbed carved by storms I will never know

Her eyes, two dark pools filling slowly

with the rain’s remorse.

What would she say about the Monsoon now?

She, who told me stories of first kiss under torrential 

downpour

how when the mud turned to slush she ran through curtains of 

rain,

healed by the sky's trembling hands,

her laughter rising, barefoot, into the swollen mouth of the storm.

Ah Ma, the sky bleeds differently now.

We’ve emptied her of the kindness she once held

bartered green for grey babylonian towers

the island shrinks beneath rising waters

Like a paper boat placed into a bathtub

dissolving, edges blurred

And the article says:

“Monsoon surge hits Singapore, bringing rain to all parts of the island”. 

But the island wasn’t what it was– and neither is the rain.