by Jonathan Chan

these were the gasps, plaintive,
released at bedside, moonlight,
next to turbines, over roads, over
tea, in jungles, wrapped in mud,
by snowfall, pine trees, under hot
jets, alone, those rivulets of
shame, accompanied, by daylight,
by laughter, by yearning, by
contentment, until my eyes could
take it no more and the metaphors
crumbled and the immanence broke
us down and the blurred contours
burst into vision and the breath rushed
into my lungs and the water’s surface
shattered and there was only the
memory of desires laid at
unknowable feet.

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Jonathan Chan is a writer, editor, and graduate student at Yale University. Born in New York to a Malaysian father and South Korean mother, he was raised in Singapore and educated in Cambridge, England. He is interested in questions of faith, identity, and creative expression. He has recently been moved by the writing of Don Mee Choi, Boey Kim Cheng, and Henri Nouwen. 

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