The Corridor
by Ping Yi Yee
I nearly step on the tiniest grey frog
sitting on the railway track—paved over
after the last train conductor pulled
his final whistle, after sheds century-old
emptied and shuttered. Pausing there
fretting about the next runner or cyclist:
will you hop back after my hand
alters your fate; should I leave you be?
I shoo the frog off with a twig, back into
tall grass, fermenting leaves, towards
warbling waterhens, roosters foraging
vegetable plots, soil mixed with dung--
a breeze wafts over and I choke;
thinking of others gasping their last, after
their hopeless journey. Walking on
past the hospital where massacre befell,
past milestones marking today in black
and white, fresh memorials dedicated
to travel. I leave the flawed past,
peering at the tenuous future;
this corridor will survive us:
you who are here a hundred years hence,
I would speak with you. I head back,
dreams and doom aswirl in my mind.
In the tunnel under a dual carriageway,
graffiti and creepers duel and tango,
entwined in hope; no paint sprayed
in anger, no shoot growing in despair.
Somewhere in the undergrowth
a tiniest croak, echoing.
sitting on the railway track—paved over
after the last train conductor pulled
his final whistle, after sheds century-old
emptied and shuttered. Pausing there
fretting about the next runner or cyclist:
will you hop back after my hand
alters your fate; should I leave you be?
I shoo the frog off with a twig, back into
tall grass, fermenting leaves, towards
warbling waterhens, roosters foraging
vegetable plots, soil mixed with dung--
a breeze wafts over and I choke;
thinking of others gasping their last, after
their hopeless journey. Walking on
past the hospital where massacre befell,
past milestones marking today in black
and white, fresh memorials dedicated
to travel. I leave the flawed past,
peering at the tenuous future;
this corridor will survive us:
you who are here a hundred years hence,
I would speak with you. I head back,
dreams and doom aswirl in my mind.
In the tunnel under a dual carriageway,
graffiti and creepers duel and tango,
entwined in hope; no paint sprayed
in anger, no shoot growing in despair.
Somewhere in the undergrowth
a tiniest croak, echoing.
Ping Yi Yee writes poetry, short fiction and creative nonfiction. After a three-decade detour in public service, he resumed his lifelong interest in speculative, humour and travel writing. His work appeared in Orbis, Litro, London Grip, Meniscus, Harbor Review, Vita Poetica, Litbreak, ONE ART, and Poetry Breakfast, among others, and is forthcoming in The Stony Thursday Book and The Prose Poem. Ping Yi lives in Singapore with his spouse and their son.