January 2013.
we meet on the roof of the School of Creative
Media building, and I need
your friendship, excited familiarity
the joy in your eyes when you speak
of teaching, of the young Hong Kongers
in your classes
too much drinking and dancing
is how I remember
you outside your fierce dedication
to your research and your students
singsong melody
sounds, cadences, rhythms
of your writing imprint on me
when I receive Landbridge
I read so slowly, sorrow there will never
be new words from you again
I pause on this life fragment
about Souvankham and her work
think how I met her a decade before
you, how our friends and our writing
bind us, a nostalgia for an intimate
way of being, a community
the gift that tethers me
to you
Notes
1. Italics are lines from Y-Dang Troeung’s Landbridge.
Doretta Lau started watching horror movies at age nine and sketch comedy at eleven, which was probably why she ended up completing an MFA in Writing at Columbia University. The Atlantic named her short story collection, How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun?, as a best book of 2014. The title story was shortlisted for the 2013 Writers’ Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. Her forthcoming novel We Are Underlings is out fall 2026 with House of Anansi Press. She developed a television pilot based on this book with Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Eboni Booth. Visit https://dorettalau.com.
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