Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Poetry 2017 | Page 183

She smiles a rueful smile,
Because even a wilting flower was once a flower.
Fragments
Singapore International School, Chan, Chloe – 17
two vicious beasts once encircled our city –
a leaping dragon and a virtuous phoenix –
in exchange for our loyalty and our traditions
spitfires spat fire,
rippling heat across calm waters
openly warning our enemies:
stay away
peaceful seas calmed our minds
and the godly creatures lay at ease
in the flame of the moment
we let our guards down.
celestial beings woven from ginseng and fur
pulled the wool over our eyes.
Blindsided,
we poisoned their heart and core
and slowly drove them away –
when the rising sun returned,
they’d have inched farther,
meters into miles into-
Gone.
All that’s left now
are fragments of our wall:
singed feathers and burnt scales
an inauspicious whisker and a viceless beak;
haunting remnants of
how much greater we could have been.