Jason Wee (b. 1979)

SELECTED POEMS

Trawlers will occasionally snare 
underwater islands in their nets.
—David Wheatley, "Trident"

Before it unmoored 
the island used to 
be an archipelago.

The mangroves splay their wet 
limbs as several 
origins of new worlds—

bridges of fish bones, 
peet bogs forever 
smoldering, an otter reef

later filled in with 
sand. When the last land 
sale was done and still its debt

deepens, it fired 
its cavern engines
and split. Clever shielding hid

its movements but here 
and there creditor-
cartographers map jagged

faces freshly bleeding 
clay like wet scabs fallen 
off a maiming wound.

The island as petal, 
as sarong billowed 
around exposure, as

colour passing as
stem, as fixity,
restful as gunships briefly

dry-docked. Colour as 
fig leaf—there's a war 
not happening for now, leaves

as boats full of
insufficient lifejackets, 
as so many petals

round the bull wrist of 
the officer lightly on 
his baton, welcome

as the exposed name 
on the immigration ledge 
in full fighting light.

On this site you can track 
where every city sails 
but it can't tell you

if the tables are 
always set or if 
meals are eaten in secret,

which captain's eyes dropped 
like coins in a beggar's cup 
when darker skin passed,

if someone comes to fix it 
when a stair light blows 
or the doors stay shut.

Every city must
throw your raft a ladder.
Some warm cabins, some, torches.

I disclose my dark 
saying to the Colonel. 
Why don't you invade more?

Several islands 
shouldn't suffice. More 
colonies east of Java

each one a puncture 
of fearful boats thirsty 
for safe stones, amnesty.

I swell my gut up 
and float. The Colonel will pick 
me up for supper.

No alley, corner,
Stairs in these new cities 
too dark for recordings;

without secrets, no 
detectives. This is
the safest time since the war

the voice said. No one 
sees anything, no
one has anything to say.

"No assimilation
when there's no distance 
between you and your face

and there's no difference 
between us as far, 
as long, as I can see"

by Jason Wee
from In Short, Future Now (2020)

 

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