Two Poems
by Ruey Fern Tan
The Sun is Green
I woke up one day and told myself
the sun was green.
Then eggs and bacon, spitting oil
on the stovetop, took a while
to condition myself to face egg yolk
with sourness and a scowl
because no, it did not
remind me of the sun,
because the sun was green.
I called my grandmother
and I told her that the sun was green.
She smiled with no teeth,
smiled through the specks of electromagnetic
nothing in the air, curling over the hills
of clouds over my house and she said
"that's nice dear, and did you hear
the neighbours are having a baby"
I said congratulations, without asking
whose neighbours.
I looked out the window
and the sun turned the world
a shade of mint green, as though
in a retro fashion magazine
I had to order and received only
through a hand-sized screen.
I woke up again, the sun still green,
and got muesli stuck between
my young coffee-stained teeth
because my grandmother told me
it was healthy, I ate one bite;
I threw the rest out through the window,
white flakes pelting down several alcoves
waterfall onto the car park below
frothing sage green,
under the newborn daylight.
I watched the day grow old,
grow a cloud-beard as I
scribbled down notes in paper
as to why the sun was green
and listened to keys clacking
as I spewed words onto a forum
explaining what I had seen.
It was so simple, and so
complicated. The sun
was green.
I pulled the telephone cord
so my grandmother would stop calling
to ask if I had seen the sunflowers spring,
or if I had paid my bills recently. I scrawled
all over eighteen years of postcards
blotting out that false warning sign
that hung in the air like crime scene tape
washed clean. I scribbled darker and darker,
using up my black marker until
I had to buy more.
I bought boxes of markers
from the same sepia store,
from the shop clerk who never
looked me in the eye.
"Have a good day," he muttered
sometimes, but not always so I
stopped replying.
The sun was green.
I grew a film over my eyeballs,
you see? the recipe I found
for sea-monkey skins
on the wiki for multiple sun ecology
worked just fine, I am just fine.
Block letters dance around,
with clapping yellow spiders betwixt
saying all colours are right
for the big ballooning sun
that heats the side of my face up now as I'm typing this--
but
I shake my head, no, why am I
just now realising this? Clicking exit,
because I remember I know
the sun is green.
I will not use that wiki anymore.
When I Have a Home
When I have a home
of wholly my own
I will first chase out
my sponge-armed aunts,
and ban them
with gold-dust borders
sprinkled around,
to keep away
tumbleweed, and
honking cars, and
other such blights.
And – yes – right
why not also
the so-called
elder brothers?
They can go
smoke on another
shoulder for I,
I bring those
I want into
this place of mine,
silver people
with the sense
not to be too gold,
or to be too iron.
Once I find
that home only
my own, there
in the roofless caverns
strewn with spick-span spring-
-cleaning, and shan’t it be nice
if some leaves blew in? the smell
of uncle-smoke and brother-smoke is
only as dissimilar to rustic fireplaces
as you make it out to be!
the floors become overstocked,
stocked with sorrel, while posters
of cottagecore cleanness remain
posters, even in the recesses
of my mind.
Ruey Fern is an undergraduate student who loves learning language, living language and listening to language. They mostly publish on a personal blog, carboniferouschronicles.wordpress.com. They hope readers can get something enriching out of their writing.
