Jill Chan


What Is This Waiting

some for success (achievement), some for happiness
(contentment), some for death (in sex and after
the love, in life), some
for pleasure and awkwardness
(another kind
baiting for the possible self)
some for the round wall
(distance sight teaches
to look)
some for the utterance
(screams, gross or delicate)
some for more
(or less—too much goodness
can kill)
some for less
(or more—too little evil
can be stolen)
some for seeming
(that father who hears
and gives you your listening)
some for hurting
(you, confident, crying for all you've hurt)
some for thin life
(or living, never both)
some for hunger
(or having, never)
some for fame
(look, a plane)
some for maps
(for the heart you acquire
but break in (for) others)
some for money
(or things you bought with it--
and can never receive)
some for requirements
(you did not want this?)
some for delay
(I have all the time
I can buy from
other lives, other lonelinesses)
some for the fan
(electric and whirring like a heart
never meant to travel)
some for the advice
(who could use it?)
some for having
(...)
(going back to the
things you knew
if only you were really waiting)



Jill Chan is a poet based in Auckland, New Zealand. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in MiPOesias, foam:e, fieralingue Poets’ Corner, Tears in the Fence, Blue Fifth Review, Asia and Pacific Writers Network, Otoliths, Broadsheet, JAAM, Poetry New Zealand, Brief, Takahe, Trout, Deep South, Southern Ocean Review, Blackmail Press, and other magazines. She is the author of three collections of poetry: These Hands Are Not Ours (2009), winner of the Earl of Seacliff Poetry Prize; Becoming Someone Who Isn't (2007); and The Smell of Oranges (2003), all published by Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop. She is one of the poets featured in the New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive. Official website:http://jillchanwriter.wordpress.com
 
 
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