Friends said
There’s a life called the botanical life
The wind walked among the young
They’re all single
Vaccinated, socially active
Friends gave me
A green leaflet the size of a name card
That said everything about
(No one found its tiny white words easy to read)
the botanical life
It organized exhibitions about
Plant communication, and music festivals
Featuring a band called Emo Plants
None of these spoke to me honestly
(Plants, life, exhibitions, music festivals)
But they kept me thinking
Whether I had indeed something
Or made my choice to have it
And I
Boring like a houseplant
Lustful like bittervine
So why not give it a go?
It cost me nothing, no prerequisite
Or side effects (Then why still care!)
The botanical life
I canceled the lease of my old place
I dumped my boyfriends
(Handing over all these to my friends)
The day I left, for no obvious reason
I was suddenly washed over by sadness
I (took the instructions to heart)
Let go my hands as my motorbike passed the third fork on the right
And fell through the cracks of banana leaves
That day
The drizzle began at five-forty
—
Born in 1993, Chen Poyu has won numerous literary prizes in Taiwan, including the Lin Rong-San Literary Award in Essays, and the Times Literary Award. Named one of the Ten Most Anticipated Writers born in the 1990s by Wenhsun Magazine, Chen is the author of The Scientists (interviews), The Bubbles Maker (essays), and two poetry collections, mini me and The Art of Rivalry. His recent publications include The Basement Tapes, a book of collaborative texts and illustrations with Kuo Chien Yu. His Chinese translation of Robert Hass’s Summer Snow was published in 2022. He currently lives in Taipei. IG: @lukepoyuchen
Nicholas Wong is a poet, translator and visual artist from Hong Kong. He is the author of Crevasse, winner of the Lambda Literary Awards in Gay Poetry, and Besiege Me, also a Lammy finalist in the same category. His poems and translations are forthcoming in The Georgia Review, Five Points, American Poetry Review, among others. He is an International Writing Program resident at the University of Iowa in Fall 2024, and currently teaches at the Education University of Hong Kong. IG: @citiesofsameness