潮聲入骨

On By Meiling CheungIn Poetry, SonnetLeave a comment

潮臥沙汀，冷浪貼我趾邊，
鹹風穿髮，濕意上眉梢；
細沙隨步，軟軟陷其間，
月色如霜，落滿我輕袍。

銀蟾低照，水光磨玉肌，
一線寒痕，沿腕緩緩流；
鹽珠微顫，凝在肌膚裏，
夜氣侵衣，卻把心燒透。

浪來，濡我踝；退，餘涼未盡，
濕沙留痕，轉眼又無蹤；
風拂肩頭，帶海藻幽韻，
遠磯碎月，近耳盡潮聲。

我立潮中，任衣襟染濕，
一呼一吸，與海同沉浮。

The tide lay hushed; cool water kissed my feet,
And salt-wind threaded slowly through my hair;
Soft sand gave way beneath each step I’d meet,
While silver gathered lightly on the air.

The moon poured down her pale and patient light,
And traced cool rivers slowly down my skin;
A bead of salt trembled, clear and bright,
While dampened cloth drew the night close in.

Each wave came cool around my waiting feet,
Then slipped away, leaving its chill behind;
Wet sand received each footprint, soft and sweet,
While seaweed breathed its green scent on the wind.

I stood where darkness mingled sea and shore,
And breathed until my pulse became the sea once more.

“

Dawn on the Sea

On By Meiling CheungIn Haiku, PoetryLeave a comment

天光吻海面
潮声未醒，风先来
一线金光开

Dawn kisses the water
The tide still dreams; the wind wakes first
One seam of gold opens

熟路

On By Meiling CheungIn Free verse, Poetry1 Comment

你嘅手未掂到我，
我身已經認得你。
唔係記憶——
係肩胛骨微微一動，
腰間嗰寸空位忽然有咗名字。

我哋太熟。
熟到你知道我邊度會避，
邊度唔會；
熟到一個呼吸嘅遲疑，
都足以令皮膚先一步回答。

你靠近，
我冇退。
只係兩個人之間
仍然留住一線風，
薄得幾乎冇重量，
卻叫渴望有地方生長。

有啲觸碰，
唔因陌生而顫；
正正因為知道——
知道指尖會落喺邊，
知道溫度會停留幾耐，
知道身體曾經點樣
把另一個身體記低。

所以多年之後，
你仍然可以只係望我一眼，
我就覺得自己
又未被你碰過。

而呢，
先至係最難戒嘅事：
身體從來冇忘記，
愛卻每一次
都仍然想重新開始。

Your hand has not reached me,
and already my body knows you.
Not memory—
but the small turning of the shoulder,
the sudden naming of that narrow space at my waist.

We are too familiar.
You know where I will yield,
where I will not;
you know the hesitation inside a breath
that makes the skin answer first.

You come nearer.
I do not retreat.
Only one thin measure of air
remains between us—
almost weightless,
yet enough room
for longing to grow.

Some touch trembles
not because it is unknown,
but because it is known too well:
where the fingers will rest,
how long warmth will remain,
how the body once learned
to keep another body by heart.

And after all these years,
you need only look at me
and I feel, somehow,
as though you have never touched me.

That is the difficult thing to lose:
the body has never forgotten,
while love, each time,
still wants to begin again.

Before the Mind Can Name It

On By Meiling CheungIn Free verse, PoetryLeave a comment

我唔再數呼吸——
佢哋自己散開，
一縷一縷，
似黑暗忽然學識發光。

身體唔再係邊界，
而係一扇門，
開得咁慢，
連時間都忘記催我。

有一刻，
我只聽見血液行過自己；
冇名字，冇方向，
只有一股力量
從骨縫深處升起，
將沉默推到最高。

我冇捉住佢。
亦冇逃。

任佢經過我，
像潮水經過石頭——
唔帶走我，
只留下我終於知道
自己可以有幾深。

後來一切歸於靜。

窗外仍然係夜，
床單仍然係床單，
月光甚至冇問發生過乜嘢。

只有我知道：

那一刻，
身體曾經比語言
更加誠實。

I stopped counting breath.

It had become too large for numbers,
unthreading itself through me
until even the dark
seemed briefly illuminated from within.

The body ceased to be a boundary.
It became a threshold—
not crossed,
but opened,
slowly enough
for time to lose its manners.

Then came that strange instant
when blood itself seemed audible,
a private weather beneath the skin,
rising without permission,
without language,
without anything left to explain.

I did not seize it.
I did not resist.

I let the force pass through me
with the terrible ease
of water finding its level.

And afterwards—

nothing had changed.
The room remained the room.
The night kept its distance.
Moonlight, with impeccable discretion,
made no comment.

Yet something in me
had crossed no boundary
and discovered one:

that the body,
when wholly awake,
can tell the truth
before the mind has found
the courage to name it.

The Narrow Door

On By Meiling CheungIn Free verse, PoetryLeave a comment

No candle knew what passed between us,
the room kept faith with its own dimness;
only the curtain, lifting once,
seemed to understand.

You came slowly—
not like a wave, but water
finding the patient shape of stone,
learning where the silence softened.

There are doors that open outward,
bright with hinges, asking nothing.
And there are others
that require the whole heart
to forget its hurry.

Your hand rested at my waist.
That was enough.

Beyond the ordinary geography of touch,
we crossed a country without names,
where every breath was a question
and every answer
was given by staying.

Outside, the rain wrote
its small, persistent script
against the glass.

Inside, two bodies learned
that tenderness has thresholds—
and that sometimes
the most intimate distance
is the one we dare
to let another cross.

香蘭

On By Meiling CheungIn Free verse, PoetryLeave a comment

夜深，窗外雨細，
一縷香蘭忽然來。
不是花開，
是妳行過我身旁——
衣袖輕輕，
仍帶住那年嘅暖。

我冇喊妳。
有啲思念，
唔肯驚動夜色；
只係坐低，
由得香氣慢慢行入心。

母親，
原來人走得好遠，
一種香，仲可以留低。
佢唔問我快唔快樂，
唔問我有冇長大——
只係靜靜提醒：
愛過，就唔會真正走失。

今晚，
我聞到妳。
冇一句再見，
冇一滴眼淚必要。
只得雨，
只得花，
同我仍然記得妳。

Tonight the rain is fine against the glass,
and ylang‑ylang comes quietly through the room.
Not the flower—
but the trace of you passing near me,
your sleeve brushing the air,
carrying warmth from some unhurried year.

I do not call for you.

Some kinds of missing
have learned not to disturb the night.
They simply sit beside me
and breathe.

Mother,
you have gone farther than any road could measure,
yet one fragrance can cross the distance
without asking permission.

It does not ask whether I am happy,
or whether I finally learned
how to be grown.

It only says, very softly:

what was loved
is not lost merely because
the hand can no longer reach it.

Tonight,
I smell you.

No farewell needs improving.
No tears need proving.

Only rain.
Only flowers.

And this strange, stubborn grace—
that after all these years,
I still know you
by the way the air remembers.

解扣

On By Meiling CheungIn PoetryLeave a comment

你唔使郁手，
我已經鬆咗一扣；
夜色咁識人心，
輕輕一望，
連矜持都自動解鈕。

你話：「慢啲。」
我笑——慢，先至耐看；
一句說話落低，
兩個人之間，
忽然多咗一寸空間。

絲滑過肩，
似一句未講完嘅話；
我本來好端正，
偏偏你眼神
最懂得點樣叫人失禮。

到最後，
唔知係衫鬆，定係心鬆；
唔知係誰先投降，
只知道夜色太暖，
而我——
已經解得太從容。

You never had to touch the knot—
it loosened under looking.
The night had nimble fingers,
and modesty, apparently,
was only loosely fastened.

“Slowly,” you said.
I smiled: slow is such a dangerous word.
Some things take longer
precisely because
they know where they are going.

Silk slipped its argument
from shoulder to shadow;
I kept my composure beautifully—
which is to say,
I was losing it with excellent manners.

By midnight,
I could no longer tell
what had come undone:
the dress, the distance,
or that rather serious woman
I had intended to remain.

Nothing was confessed.
Nothing was required.
Yet somehow the room
had acquired fewer boundaries—

and I,
quite scandalously,
had acquired none.