Moon Fall

Gwee Li Sui

Moon Fall Drunk on a boat
in the cool night
Li Po touched the moon
with a hand
and drowned
and became the maroon
of ink slab beneath
the ink, ripple
of the pre-word,
a great Chinese myth.

Armstrong, in a ship
in the night, spacedrunk,
touched the moon with a foot
and, returning,
became
renowned with his loot,
escaping the arrest
of a certain
mortality,
a myth for the West.

One moon and two reflexes,
one entity that teaches
us to celebrate different heroes --

So who coined the lame
notion that East
and West are the same
when colour is the least
of divides?

Published in Who Wants to Buy a Book of Poems? (1998)


Postcolonial Web Singapore OV Singaporean
Literature Gwee Li Sui