(Loh Ching Mui, died 5/2/1998, 10.45pm)
they told me that poh-poh died
she had been needing hand to foot attention
these past twenty four months
serviced by a young Indonesian woman
who spoke no Chinese, poh-poh no Malay
But she had lost her speaking voice then
she who had mumbled secret prayers for this grandchild
on first day of primary school the jossticks wending smoke to whatever god or ancestor
she who went to the temple to divine my future
and entreated the goddess Kuanyin for mercy
on a sick child stricken with polio
she with whom was shared a four poster bed
with mosquito net
and grandad
to listen to the antics of the monkey king
and many, many of those melodramatic Chinese tales of love
or kungfu stories spun out on the redifusion in Menglembu
because the child could not run out to play.
she with whom was cracked the melon seeds carefully with teeth
watching the Cantonese operas on the local makeshift temple stages
eating the Buddhist vegetarian noodles.
She is here no more
too many airmiles away
this errant grandchild mourns the passing of her maternal grandmother
without the jossticks
with an alien god
in a different culture, with a foreign tongue
she who passes to the other shore
may she rest in peace.