share


Monopoly (after Ashbery)

I keep everything until the moment it’s needed.
I am the glint in your bank manager’s eye.
I never eat cake in case of global meltdown.
I am my own consolation.

I have a troubled relationship with material things:
I drop my coppers smugly in the river.
(I do everything with an unbearable smugness.)
I propose a vote of thanks.

I make small errors in your favour. Sometimes
I pretend nothing is wrong.
I won second prize in a beauty contest.
I am yellowing at the edges.

I was last seen drawing the short straw.
I hang about tragically on street corners, where
I hand out cards that read: if you see
I am struggling to lift this card, please, do not help me.

 

 


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

is a Hong Kong-born poet and academic. Her first book, Loop of Jade (Chatto & Windus, 2015), won the T.S. Eliot Prize. She teaches poetry at King’s College London.


READ NEXT

poetry

April 2017

Two Poems

Fady Joudah

poetry

April 2017

EUROPA AND THE BULL   The boat was loaded on a truck. The truck took me to the border....

poetry

Issue No. 3

The Far Shore

Michael Hampton

poetry

Issue No. 3

Windblown: gone with the summer wind. Windblown: gone with the autumn wind. Windblown: gone with the winter wind. Windblown:...

feature

June 2014

Hoarseness: A Legend of Contemporary Cairo

Youssef Rakha

feature

June 2014

U. Mubarak It kind of grows out of traffic. The staccato hiss of an exhaust pipe begins to sound like...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required