Evenings flicker, a million times

on a million television screens

with Jackie Chan.

I am learning to walk

through unwashed streets

with memories of flu in the neighbourhood.

我不會， 我不會忘記。¹

Our lives are different under a strange democracy

of rats, for street protests are possible

when politicians cough over the latest crisis.

Is this my city?

我不會， 我不會离開。²

Is an economy of rats possible

or do we need casinos?

Those metal domes

phallic in the skyline, those shiny aspiring skyscrapers

in Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau.

These are cities I cherish:

the new blueprints with old drafts of buildings,

that spurt of concrete of twelve storeys, a spit of land

for trees, shrubs and barbecue pits.

We have imagined ourselves:

we live like rats, our appetites bite and bite.

¹ I will not, I will not forget.

² I will not, I will not depart.

A poem from The Mental Life of Cities, a poetry collection by Prof. Eddie Tay of the Department of English, which recently won the biennial 2012 Singapore Literature Prize (English Category)