three poems

by Jonathan Chan

i have mastered the contours of this island

i have mastered the contours of this island.

i have made straight the crags of its coast.

i have removed water from the salt of the sea.

i have burned everything to the fecundity of dust.

i have ordered all hedges into formation.

i have revived the lineage of the otter.

i have forested the columns of light.

i have carved imprints of the body in clay.

i have dug boots in the heat of its soil.

i have drawn energy through the cables of the ocean.

i have raised towers on the corpses of the beach.

i have breathed life from the fullness of sand.

i have turned prayer and aspiration to sweat.

i have watched the earth bend to my will.

i blinked out tears from the sting of varnish

i blinked out tears from the sting of varnish.

i counted the pixels of an old photograph.

i lied to my body about sleep.

i returned to the edge of old fantasy.

i longed to be loved in the summertime.

i contained the mystified in an email.

i balanced both action and petition.

i crushed a lighter underfoot.

i smiled for the cameras at each lamp.

i looked at the organising typhoon.

i counted the earthquakes and the wildfires.

i seeded the silence in slippage.

i prayed through the heaviness of the mind.

i held both everything and nothing.

memento

Houston, Texas

“We can never be with loss too long”

-Spencer Reece

crumpled and folded, the gown stayed

at the bottom of the rucksack. it rattled

over the days of summer. the bus rumbled

through the Tennessee desert. the bag

soaked the sweat squeezed in the bayou

heat. strewn in the vacant room, it held

only the weight of a wearying abandon.

unfurling by the waters, the grass crawled

toward the intimation of wildness. pink carnations

wilted in the cups dug into the ground. how

many men and women had come to make

something new of themselves, dreaming of

blue skies and the shine of the sun? they

asked for their ancestral names to be

etched into stone. the cap felt heavier

in my hands than it had in New England.

cloth draped over my shoulder, i smoothed

out the frazzled front, put on the silver

stole, adjusted the tassel on the mortar board,

and turned to face my grandfather’s

grave.

Photo of Jonathan Chan

BIO: Jonathan Chan is a writer, editor, and translator of poems and essays. His first collection of poems, going home (Landmark, 2022), was a finalist for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2024. His second collection is bright sorrow (Landmark, 2025). He serves as Managing Editor of the poetry archive poetry.sg. He has recently been moved by the work of James Baldwin, Faisal Mohyuddin, and Ang Swee Chai. More of his writing can be found at jonbcy.wordpress.com.