A Detective Sonnet

Felix Cheong Seng Fei

Words find no purchase in these streets.
I could wake the silence with a gun
and all the confession worth a buy
is a shrug, a blink of sun.

If only you could see man as I
see him, every tunnel of day
blundering in the blind, a cul-de-sac
through which evil empties its ways,

you would understand why all I want is a woman
whose heart hits me true and right,
and that will be enough --to be here, a stiff
drink warming in her light

and her tears christening my past
when my case is closed at last.

Published in Broken by the Rain (2003)


Postcolonial Web Singapore OV Singaporean
Literature Felix Cheong Seng Fei

Last Modified: 5 September 2003