I
I watch the red-scaled dragon breathe laughter instead.
Its skin expands, taught around spine and ribs that
Inflate with memories in the day (parents watching
Children crawl in the suspended skeleton and laugh along
With the joy of playing and mock-adventure)
or crowded with drunken chuckling
Night-dwellers hidden in the underbellies in simple sweet bliss.
The dragon hissed like a smooth drum membrane sliding under
My fingertips. And in the open air of the
Decaying HDB, the sounds of the dragon’s breath echoed.
II
What is an ice-cream van without an ice-cream man? This joke
Has no punchline, no line of eager nostalgic mouths
No line for a dollar ice-cream. Without the crowd and in the dark
The yellow van was peeling
Scrap metal, unless traded in to be recycled, useless and
Without sweet sticky promise the metal rattled like an empty piggybank
When I tried to shake out the noise and conversations
(And surely even indecisive “which flavor should I get?”)
That it had witnessed.
Standing where the ice-cream man would be the next morning, I strained
To hear what he has taken along with him for the night
And peered into the darkness of the carpark
Searching for the punchline, the daytime magic.
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