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

August 2016

Three New Poems

Sarah V. Schweig

poetry

August 2016

‘The Audit’ and ‘Red Bank’ are excerpts from Schweig’s forthcoming book, Take Nothing With You (University of Iowa Press, 2016).  ...

fiction

Issue No. 3

Fifteen Flowers

Federico Falco

TR. Janet Hendrickson

fiction

Issue No. 3

To Lilia Lardone Summer was ending. The air already smelled like smoke, but it still looked clear, sunny. The...

poetry

January 2016

Two New Poems

Elena Fanailova

TR. Eugene Ostashevsky

poetry

January 2016

(POEM FOR ZHADAN)   This (my) country will be the death of you Its military mathematics Its secret services...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required