Shou Jie Eng
Mnemonic: Clothing
Belt buckle, trouser loop. Every
morning you dress
a body, bloused and buttonholed,
each knuckle pressed
in place. You tell your students
that the energy consumption
in cotton production derives primarily
from ginning. I tell mine
about poche, useful in making
drawings clear.
Une poche is a pocket. Space
between two layers of fabric.
Between cotton, sometimes. Some-
times I rest my face
between your right arm and your rib.
Sometimes you tuck
your hand into my pocket
as if to say
still here.
Belt buckle, trouser loop. Every
morning you dress
a body, bloused and buttonholed,
each knuckle pressed
in place. You tell your students
that the energy consumption
in cotton production derives primarily
from ginning. I tell mine
about poche, useful in making
drawings clear.
Une poche is a pocket. Space
between two layers of fabric.
Between cotton, sometimes. Some-
times I rest my face
between your right arm and your rib.
Sometimes you tuck
your hand into my pocket
as if to say
still here.
Mnemonic: Cartography
all day I spend mapping the city
and all day I fail to see it
sliding drawer after drawer out
at the archive
New Bedford is only a village in 1834
so says a map made that year
yet in the next drawer
it becomes a view
orthography unfurling into scenography
bridge stretching out of frame
a city with its hills lilting
to the horizon
the presses that make these maps
win praise for the fineness
of their lithography
and close shortly after
there is a lesson to this but it is not
one that I learn as all day I sit
mapping the city and all day
it moves out of sight
all day I spend mapping the city
and all day I fail to see it
sliding drawer after drawer out
at the archive
New Bedford is only a village in 1834
so says a map made that year
yet in the next drawer
it becomes a view
orthography unfurling into scenography
bridge stretching out of frame
a city with its hills lilting
to the horizon
the presses that make these maps
win praise for the fineness
of their lithography
and close shortly after
there is a lesson to this but it is not
one that I learn as all day I sit
mapping the city and all day
it moves out of sight
--
Shou Jie Eng is a writer and architectural designer. Originally from Singapore, he runs Left Field Projects, a multi-disciplinary design practice located in Hartford, Connecticut. His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, The Los Angeles Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere, and he teaches courses on architectural drawing and other representational topics at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Shou Jie Eng is a writer and architectural designer. Originally from Singapore, he runs Left Field Projects, a multi-disciplinary design practice located in Hartford, Connecticut. His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, The Los Angeles Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere, and he teaches courses on architectural drawing and other representational topics at the Rhode Island School of Design.