The point is to have a garden
that exists to say: I am a garden.
Bees do their duty sans complaint,
Each flower has a charming name,
and the watering pot is, of course, red.
It is what a boy means
when he says he’ll have a garden
(g-a-r-d-e-n), what he means when
he imagines for himself a wife
(w-i-f-e), whose face he cannot see
but spells beauty, who moves
slim-waisted, evergreen,
to a few snips of music.
But weeds are brittle, stone-rough,
above desiccated roots,
tangling, like lines on aged hands.
Bio: Gabrielle Tse is a Hong Kong-born writer of Chinese and Filipina descent, currently studying Comparative Literature in Edinburgh; previously, she read Law at The University of Hong Kong. She was shortlisted for the Scottish Book Trust’s New Writers Award in 2025 and won the Hong Kong Young Writers Award two years in a row. Find her at: https://gabrielletse.wixsite.com/mysite.
