There’s a kitten on the road, the tiniest
mewling blind-pink, mouthing hello, help me
please through the glass, as I pull up next lane.
The red light counts down; I am liquid ore,
tar eternal: get out, get up, out, move!
More cars and bikes arrive, revving, itching
to go; my window evaporating.
The gods forgive me, I am so sorry—
Crimson shame deluges, my pointless hands
glued to the wheel: what cost to stop traffic,
what price to keep a life, what toll to live
when another dies. The food deliverer
beside me steps off his scooter, scooping
the cat up in his grey gloves; mottled rose
on charcoal, distant red winking to green.
While my body drives my car, still shaking.
writes poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. After a three-decade detour in public service, he resumed his lifelong interest in speculative, humour, and travel writing. His work has appeared in Harbor Review, Litbreak Magazine, Litro Magazine, London Grip, Meniscus, ONE ART, Orbis, Poetry Breakfast, The Prose Poem, Vita Poetica, and Witcraft, among others; and is forthcoming in The Stony Thursday Book. Ping Yi lives in Singapore with his spouse and their son.
