Amanda Chong (b. 1989)
SELECTED POEMS
Post-Apocalyptic Love
The city is seismic. Beneath us,
roads are ripping apart
like wounds. Magma tears
through scabs of asphalt,
catching our anklesin throbbing pools. The horizon
breaks a jagged grin,
light shatters clenched jaws
of concrete. Comets singe
stubborn skeletons of trees.We knew this world would never hold us.
And so we were unfazed when it caved
in on itself—the sky bucking under
the weight of primordial metals.Our shapes barely graze the grey that shrouds us.
The stars are spiralling emptily into orbit
and there is no one else, but shadows
seared on our eyelids, as we dreamof things no imploding universe may take:
the wings of a breath as it hovers on skin,
a heartbeat reaching for its echo through bone,
the taste of lips untouched by fluorescence,
our hands, bruised, from holding each other.
by Amanda Chong
from Professions (2016)
