The Aged Fisherman





His son, the scholar, has published a memoir
of childhood spent at sea.

Fruits de Mar, he calls it. An allusion
to the pleasures
of harvest.
And his mother’s cooking.

My fins cannot hold a pen. My speech
is lost in bubbles
that break at the surface.

Where are my own children?
Who can I tell my story to?

Beware of those
who traded tails for feet,
I said to them. But they did not listen.




Zhuang Yusa lives in Singapore. His poetry has been published in Asia Writes, Sargasso (Puerto Rico), ditch, (Canada), The Toronto Quarterly, Ganymede, The Los Angeles Review, Softblow, nth position and elsewhere. He is a founding editor of Walnut Literary Review. He blogs HERE.