two poems by

Christopher Tang

back to the library

  • Kitchen Song

    you’re on the cusp of nineteen.
    her kitchen is bigger, the summer glow of the cooker light
    bathing all four of your hands. you wash the dishes, tap foam
    lacing its way between palms you can’t wait to show her. you sit and watch
    her glide wine into risotto, bubbling and imagining life here for just
    one more day, one more time. you realise that to help someone cook is to allow
    both of you to be stressed, to allow pressure – to see yourself as a knife glint
    or oven clock, a dangerous pleasure, the scent of garlic on fingertips that never
    seems to leave. but that, in and of itself, does not mean kitchens are always future
    spaces. it is a moment, a May or June night with cheese cubes and pirated movies,
    but lovers and second lovers and enemies have moments all the time.
    yet, we will not take second lovers. of course not. how do i know? because in your
    kitchen, we bubbled. i left the tap running too long. you told me that’s a waste, the first
    time i had seen you be so serious. we fought to never waste anything precious again.

  • Ghazal for Custard Apple

    the first time i ate a custard apple, its soft belly died sweetened
    under my tongue and i saw green. you, too, smiled: sweetened

    and ripe with joy at a culture smoothing before my teeth. you like to
    share. and i love to taste like you. this apple can’t hide, sweetened

    with time across ocean mist and dirt-road trucks to arrive at my palate
    like some imported, stage-plate starlet. there’s national pride in sweetened

    experiences – next, you take me home and your kitchen is this grinning
    fridge, unravelling like peeled mango skin; sharp lentils spiced, sweetened.

    your tiled floor is a place of life, but i’d pick clean the pomegranate seeds from
    the chaat and stay as your blossoming majesty – emerald-eyed with sweetened

    curiosity that shimmers with garlic and fresh coriander. you call me to your table –
    Christopher, eat – and my bones are warm, in love, full, satisfied, sweetened.

On
‘Kitchen Song’

Poet’s commentary

Memories, like the meals we cook in our kitchens, often disappear much faster than we realise. We spend far too long perfecting every detail, running through each recipe or interaction in our heads, all for them to be consumed in a flash – a fraction of the time the dish, or memory, took to create.

​ Humans are inherently forgetful. But some things are not so easily forgotten, and even if they were, poetry helps me remember. Some things should never be forgotten, and this moment in my first year of university is both of these.

​ ‘Kitchen Song’ was created from the idea of a personalised sonnet – one that doesn’t obey convention, rather, one that unravels with its lines, details and intimate moments that play out like a coming-of-age, indie-film scene. Picture the summer warmth of a university kitchen. The cooker light glow. Wine in risotto. Cheese cubes and your best friend.

​ Not to be overly sentimental, but this is how I fell in love. As each moment breaks traditional forms of a sonnet’s syllable count/rhythm, the poem itself explodes to keep that flashback alive. After all, that’s all a poem should do – help its writer breathe. If it helps a reader do the same, that’s a bonus.

​ At first, I was terrified of cooking with her. Because she was new, and she was my best friend, and she was quickly becoming more. Kitchens hold pressure. She cooks beautifully – I was afraid my inexperience would reveal itself, but it brought me such joy.

​ I take it back. I want to be overly sentimental. I want to break every convention of a sonnet, let the details of my love unravel between these lines, stretching each sweet moment until they’re alive again. Memories, and the food we prepare, disappear. But they taste so good; we can’t help but make more. Save them for later. They nourish us, don’t they?

On ‘Ghazal for Custard Apple’

Poet’s commentary

Originating from Arabic poetry, ghazals measure an ode to something lovely, something spiritual. But within this praise, there always exists a longing; a pang of separation bursting from admirer to the admired.

So when my girlfriend offered me an Indian custard apple (or a ‘sitafal’) for the first time – a fruit I had never tried before – it quickly became a catalyst for exploring her culture and its joys. For me, it became something worth praising, worth longing for. It was new, I was naive; she told me it was delicious and creamy and sweet and I said there was no way on Earth that a fruit could genuinely taste like custard.

But here we are. Good food and a dare to explore will open doors for many – doors that lead to a dinner table, laid and ready for community and family and home – particularly so within Asian culture. Like that first bite into any untasted fruit, that initial step is refreshing and sudden; a moment that propels you into another kitchen, another household, another way of life. It’s funny though, because one person’s house is another’s palace, and it always goes both ways. I suppose that’s the beauty of perspective. There are values, flavours, desires and recipes that unravel before your teeth; pretty words that redesign your fabric of understanding; colours that suddenly look a little brighter, a little bolder.

And, of course, cultures new and old are constantly being discovered, enjoyed and even critiqued. That’s what happens when you let someone into your home – they see it; you hope they learn to love it. But there exists a certain degree of vulnerability within loving and longing. Every person who longs and desires must first be open enough to do so. And although fruits and custard apples grow on all types of trees, we can make our own little guest houses in every culture we’re humble enough to visit. There’s something beautiful about being a guest. There’s vulnerability. And if we were all a bit more open, a little more receptive, I think we’d find new beauties in the trees of our neighbours too.

Christopher
Tang

(he/him)

Christopher wrote the above poems for boundby’s previous incarnation. They are displayed here in the library for the pleasure of all who might stumble across them.