Portia Yu shares a poem on the theme of archiving Hong Kong.

A Study in Breakages

There are things that bounce when you drop them
this is what we all learn early
we know that a grape bounces
a button bounces
a pebble bounces but reluctantly

And here is what we learn later:
a pane of glass does not bounce
a lovely glazed plate does not bounce
a vase, full or empty, shatters
spills hollowness all over the floor
and a camera, when dropped,
cracks open
and out comes the image
to stretch across the city

And all things are aligned in this logic
if you drop a promise, it breaks (it dies)
if you drop a rumour, it rolls (it lives)
if you drop a rose, it rustles (it changes)

A rose unravels into a ribbon
a ring becomes an open eye
a melon splits open and inside is a star
a door fractures
a window ruptures
empty frames reverberate eternally
a mote of dust doubles
a room regenerates
a half becomes a whole
if you drop a silence, it will turn into the end of the world

And I swear to you,
I walked down the street last night
and one by one
all the streetlamps bent their necks
they hung their heads
great glowing bulbs too heavy for their stalks
then I began to walk faster
I did not want to see
I could not bear to know how fast they would fall
behind me was the sound of breaking
all night, there was that dark street
all aching, caked in light.

Portia Yu is a poet from Hong Kong. Her work can be found in the literary journals Worm Moon Archive, celestite poetry, and Crow & Cross Keys. Her poetry has also appeared in Where Else: An Anthology of Hong Kong Poetry.