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

Issue No. 8

Thank You For Your Email

Jack Underwood

poetry

Issue No. 8

Two years ago I was walking up a mountain path having been told of excellent views from the summit....

fiction

November 2016

The Miserablist

Anne Boyer

fiction

November 2016

This vision was strongly nebulous, an indeterminate but bold reaction only because it was so much like one of...

feature

May 2014

The Quick Time Event

David Auerbach

feature

May 2014

The ability of computers to semantically understand the world – and the humans in it – is next to...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required