Why a Man Cannot Have Wings by Alfian bin Sa'at (Andrea)

Because he will crash land on his head, assuming it to be
The strongest part of his body.

Because someone will put up a sign that reads:
Do Not Step on the Cirrus Clouds.

Because it does not even take a man hundreds of feet above
Sea-level to learn contempt.

Because there will be new categories of handicaps: bow-wings,
Ostrich disease, scaly feathers, carousel flight syndrome,
Or at a freak show: The Amazing Wingless Wonder.

Because he will have a new weapon, gravity,
And everything he releases becomes a missile,
Even glass marbles, books, the fatal music box.

Because he is lonely enough without being able to
Frame the house he lives in between his forefinger and thumb.

Because then the sky will shed its metaphors of freedom
And become another path for him to carry his burdens.

Because there will be a popular form of suicide:
Flying into foreign airspace and being gunned down;
All it takes is a nose-tip to press an invisible blue button.

Because each death in mid-air, each comic comet plunge,
Will be another enactment of the fall of Man.

Because in concentration camps people will break wings
And use the feathers for quills to write sonnets
And pillow stuffing for innocent dreams.

Because he will have less to fantasize about, less of miracles
And the word 'levitation' will not exist.

Because there will be children who will empty their bladders
Under cloud cover in an attempt to make yellow snow.

And because he might get the wrong notion that he is closer
To heaven, when he has not even come to a mile
Within the presence of angels, despite the resemblance

Neighbours by Alfian Sa'at

Neighbours by Alfian Sa'at

During Hari Raya she knocks on my conscience,
I knock on her door and I give her cakes.

She says she likes them and gives me
Sweets with gelatine inside. I throw them away.

Poor woman, doesn’t know how to make cakes.
Her children eat Maggi after school every day.

That's why the elder one is in Normal stream
And the younger one can't spell her name.

If I was her age I wouldn't be wearing shorts at home.
No shame, she doesn't know how to hide her womanhood.

When the children are naughty and I beat them
I close the door: I hear she's a gossip.

But she beats her children harder than I do
What to do her children are like that.
I once hear her scream she wanted to kill herself.
These people never value their own lives.

Other times I see her I smile and she smiles back
And her children smile and call me auntie.

But in our hands we hold with fists clenched tight
The keys to our homes, each night we slam the bolt shut.