“Alley Behind the Bar” and Other Poems

By Ally Chua

Stanley Tong - Satin Draped Vases [2 of 3] (2023), Porcelain
Image description: A light-beige vase with a slender neck and round body is featured against a black background. Delicate, vertical forms resembling draping fabric pleats are sculpted on the surface of the vase. 

Cathedral

My baby drove a nail into my hand the last time

I gave him the board.

It was not his fault. The sun was setting

and we aren’t woodsmiths by trade.

I can tell you what held our attention.                                              

The sky on fire

like the day the cathedral burnt down.

Ashes to ashes.

Wait, not quite.          

That’s why I am here.

The remnants, someone’s got to rebuild it.

You go on even if you are tired.

Who else was going to get to it?

The phoenix’s already reborn,           

and gone.

And the raccoon that stayed behind

and bit me

It was not his fault.

He acted out, he was scared.  

Still hurts like a bitch.

Me, I’m a dead stray out of town.

Go to that town, say my name, and they’ll say:

Yes, what a tragic tale. I wonder what happened to her.

I think they want me to be the warning sign.

Welcome to Bedrock

This is what happens when you do this,

Or don’t do this–

(I don’t know how they spin the story anymore.)

Ask me why I hide my wounds         

and I will tell you

it's not because I am ashamed.

But someone’s going to look and me

and go

She has failed her entire life.

I just want a clean slate.

Doesn’t everybody?

If you’ve seen me there, by the autumn road,

I would have said

I want a new leaf.

I want to rebuild this cathedral          

with fireproof walls and a

sprinkler system. Safety coded,

the full works.

Maybe a yard too, with a pond. Imagine

ducks,    during autumn.          A garden

filled with magnolias, or some beautiful

blue flowers that will still

thrive if I mess up

once in a while.

And my baby will come back.           

Say he’s sorry for the nail in my hand.

He’s a better carpenter now.

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Stanley Tong - Rift [1 of 1] (2023), Painting, 48” x 24”
Image description: An abstract painting is hung against a gray wall. The painting is rendered in black and white. A slender, abstract, black shape stretches horizontally in the center of the painting. The background of the painting is white, with the four corners rendered in black. 

Unarmed.

​The day ​I found out, ​I threw up my dinner. ​

Noodles, still undigested. To this day ​I can​'t stand pesto​,

all of it downed with one pack of cigarettes. Ashes in my mouth

and my eyes. Looking at your message. Wondering why

you didn't seem sorry, at all. They told me I dodged a bullet.

But that is not the point.

I never wanted a person who would shoot me. Who could

look down the barrel and think, this is how I would hurt her.

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Stanley Tong - Thoughts and Prayers (2023), Ceramic pit-fired with sawdust, exotic woods, gunpowder, and copper wire
Image description: An arrangement of clayware is placed on a table with a blue table-cloth, against a gray backdrop. The clay vessels are shaped like vases, but each one is covered in holes of various sizes. The holes have tattered edges, as if caused by damage. 

Alley Behind the Bar

Sometimes in the stillness I wait, quiet

wondering when the ground would

shift beneath my feet. Imagine I am

at a last dance, last call,

and the announcer's going, the

circus is closing in fifteen minutes

so pack your bags and get moving

and the cold air another reality.

By the gate, the old man, the trapeze

artist. He used to be the star of the act.

He failed once, lost his wife. Now he's

the bar's resident drunk, and

the reason why trapezes have nets.

I suppose everyone has a trapeze

story. One moment where you

ruined everything. Me, I told a child

I wasn’t coming back. Even if it

wasn't by choice, all he knows is

I left him there. So suppose I

ruined everything. Kicked a puppy

so it would stop following me. Made

a child stop believing in Santa.

Isn’t the circus better, anyway?

The lions, the mirror maze,

the acrobats. Everything an

illusion, except when it isn’t.

That’s real magic,

slinging lives for fun. Backstage,

a full corridor of ghosts and the audience

none the wiser. Let me tell you

a secret. We’ve all wished for a way

out of here. Used to wonder what if

my life scraped the bottom

of a barrel. Now I know it’s living

with every ghost I created. They’ve

run me out of every home and

house. I’ve lingered in dark

corners and empty spaces. In the

end, we all find ourselves here:

Stuck in the bar, quiet in the stillness.

Wondering when the ground would

shift beneath our feet. Last dance,

last call. Waiting for the night.

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Ally Chua is a Singaporean writer now based in Boston. She was the 2019 Singapore Unbound Fellow for New York City and has been published in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Cordite Poetry Review, and Salamander Magazine. She is the author of poetry collection Acts of Self Consumption (2023) by Australian press Recent Work Press, and novel The Disappearance of Patrick Zhou (2023) by Singapore press Epigram Books.

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