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On “An Encounter at City Express”: The free verse poem was drafted during my summer residency at the MFA creative writing program at City University of Hong Kong in 2011. City Express is the name of the canteen at AC1, CityU, in which I had my first writing workshop. I was at City Express one day, probably eating lunch, when the “Miss Long Black Hair” of the poem (an undergraduate student, I guess) came along and sat at a table across from mine. I imagined the possibility of her reading my creative works on her smartphone (the line in the poem “the bitten Apple” may serve as a pun) instead of checking random updates on social media. It might just be every writer’s aspiration to have his/her works read in a coffee shop, where they can serve as an enjoyable distraction over a cup of coffee or a quick bite.

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On a bluish, plastic chair

………sat a hungry fellow

…………..who forgot to taste

but automatically chewed his simmering pork ribs in ‘silence’

watching

Miss Long Black Hair elegantly eating egg-tarts at a chilly table

…..then admiring her flushed-cheek beauty in a portable mirror

She left her seat with a stylish handbag in her left hand

…..after poking around with her bitten Apple in her right palm

Still at the dining table

….sat the hungry, solitary fellow

……….biting the warmth of juicy bones and fresh vegetables

Oh, the dancing fork and loyal spoon now

……served the aspiring lips and lone tongue

Western instruments waved ups and downs

…….for the well-cooked delivered into the absorbing organ

………..hopelessly searching for one last piece from the plate

………………..knowing all the nutrients were being digested

……..to keep the fellow’s pencil stroking from left to right

………….to fill the page with all the imagined journey

………………..toward a wordsmith’s first paperback

………………………….in Miss Long Black Hair’s stylish handbag

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Thomas Deng Guochang founded Shenzhen Poetry Association, where he chaired poetry meetings from 2009 to 2012. He has experimented with free verse, the sonnet, pantoum, haiku and other poetic genres over the past few years. He is currently an MALCS (MA in Literary and Comparative Studies) student at the Department of English.