Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Hannah Lowe

Lowe Shu On

Lowe Shu On

Lowe Shu On

He weighted codfish down with rocks of salt,
sold turning milk, half pounds of musty flour;
offered credit to the customers
he robbed, a yellowed ledger full of ticks
and angry crosses on the shop’s back shelf.
 
Not a word from China all those years,
and in the seamy rooms of Barry Street,
he drank alone, or fanned a hand of cards
to play for company, or climbed the stairs
to toss his money where a dosed girl lay
 
but the ladies in the beauty parlour
put down their magazines when he walked by,
believed those slim bones made him gentle, tender,
not a man to slap and rope a child
or stab a counter with a gutting knife.
 
He had an inventory of wives he withered
in the country, their thirteen hungry children
strewn from Heartease Pond to Poor Man’s Lane.
The smallest boy, a bed-wetter he gave
a dollar to and dumped, somehow survived. 
 
The only photograph is of his body
in the lignum vitae box he saved for.
Suited, on his bed of emerald silk.
a daughter took it as a souvenir,
as proof at last, thank god, that he was dead.
Close

Lowe Shu On

He weighted codfish down with rocks of salt,
sold turning milk, half pounds of musty flour;
offered credit to the customers
he robbed, a yellowed ledger full of ticks
and angry crosses on the shop’s back shelf.
 
Not a word from China all those years,
and in the seamy rooms of Barry Street,
he drank alone, or fanned a hand of cards
to play for company, or climbed the stairs
to toss his money where a dosed girl lay
 
but the ladies in the beauty parlour
put down their magazines when he walked by,
believed those slim bones made him gentle, tender,
not a man to slap and rope a child
or stab a counter with a gutting knife.
 
He had an inventory of wives he withered
in the country, their thirteen hungry children
strewn from Heartease Pond to Poor Man’s Lane.
The smallest boy, a bed-wetter he gave
a dollar to and dumped, somehow survived. 
 
The only photograph is of his body
in the lignum vitae box he saved for.
Suited, on his bed of emerald silk.
a daughter took it as a souvenir,
as proof at last, thank god, that he was dead.

Lowe Shu On

Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère