Rice cooked to whiteness

Cloud-hued and resilient

An expanding cushion

Waiting for scents

 

Soy tinged pork cubes

Layers of fat mellowed

By a dark veil

Spun in deep sleep

 

The grouper’s salt skin

Needle bone,  high skeleton

Guard soft ivory

from probing

 

On an old farm yam-

Sticks taste of earth

And the kitchen vessels

Of mother

 

Singapore, 2013