Eileen Chong is a Singapore-born, Sydney-based poet. She won the Poets Union Youth Fellowship in 2010 and was the Australian Poetry Fellow for 2011-2012. Her first book of poems, _Burning Rice_, was highly commended in the Anne Elder Award 2012 and was shortlisted for the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Awards in poetry in 2013. "Shophouse, Victoria Street" is a poem in five parts about growing up in a large extended family in a Singapore shophouse. "Singapore" is a poem that examines the ideas of architectural, cultural and familial amnesia. Both poems were first published in _Burning Rice_, 2012, Australian Poetry Limited.
Shophouse, Victoria Street
by Eileen Chong
I
The lame man draws the accordion gate shut,
then padlocks it. He limps to the wall where the wooden boards
lean floor to ceiling. My great-uncle lifts then sets them
in the groove behind the foot-high threshold that marks inside
from out. I climb the step, all hands and knees. Chinese vampires
cannot cross such barriers; it’s simple physics: they can only hop
with their legs fused together, arms held perpendicular
to their corpses. The bell that heralds their journey
is brandished by a priest, usually that Hong Kong actor
who seems to play no one else. Upstairs the family huddle
around the black-and-white TV. The children sit cross-legged,
their skins sticking to the rubber mat. Walk down the corridor,
feel the flowered curtain-doors billow in the wind. Climb
the steps while you hold on to the palm-burnished rail.
We sleep in the room with the stained walls, next to the landing
where women hang their washing on sagging lines.
II
Each morning I hear road sounds drift in
through the shutters. In a drawer my brother finds a coin
left over from when my mother travelled to Europe alone
on a sleeper. Her face then: smooth, untrammelled.
My father, dark-haired and pale-bodied, cradles me.
I wear a red silk suit with brocade booties and a crooked
smile. On special days I cannot predict, my mother heaves
a large kettle onto the stove then pours a stream of hot water
into the deep tiled trough. We scoop and pour,
scrub and wash. Outside, my grandmother bends over
the black sewing machine. Under the trestle table
her foot pedals out a rhythm; her fingers direct needle
into cloth, navigating patterns to make samfoo,
cheongsam, western dresses. Anything she can draw,
she can make. Behind her, the provision cupboard
doors lined with wire mesh, powdery to the touch.
III
In the dusk the stray cats land
in a patter of footfalls on the roof.
By now we are all clean: hair slicked back,
smelling of soap. Now crowd around
the back window. Put out the lights. Look
across the lane and see: another window
open into a faded bedspread where
peonies bloom and phoenixes are trapped
in mid-flight. There: she looks beautiful now
in her sequins, glitter and paint. Her name
is Linda or Nancy for the sailors who visit.
I glimpse her night life in seconds for as long
as I can jump. I know that in the morning
she will look like all the others: plain
tired, leached of colour. Soon it’s time
for our bedtime dose of gripe water.
Sixteen children, loosely related, line up
in single file. The oldest tips us one spoonful each
from the thick glass bottle. I love its sweetness
and want to drink it all at once -
IV
I still dream of Victoria Street,
of the shophouse where four generations
grew up, grew old, died and were born.
Family by family, like bees gone mad,
we fled the nest. At the end only Great-Grandmother
remained. She never moved from her corner chair
where over and over she counted her Buddhist beads.
Each time we visited she drew out ten-dollar notes
from her bodice. With green-veined fingers
she would press one into my hands and tell me
to buy something good to eat. She died alone
in the upstairs room. Kneeling on the concrete
in front of the coffin, we were a sea of monochrome
pinpricked by colour: hemp for the children, deep blue
for the grandchildren, blue and red (for luck)
for the descendants of girl-children.
V
Against the soundtrack of wailing trumpets
from the hired mourner’ band, the funeral
began. The coffin, slung with rope and hung
on sticks, had a heavy, sideways swing.
The pallbearers – her six sons in bare feet
on hot asphalt. The crematorium: an hour’s walk.
We trailed behind the coffin, the soles
of our socks turning blacker and blacker.
