Sweetness and Light
For Michael Ong

The distance between media love and the real
Article – the nestling we spend our lives
Searching for – can be measured:

It lies in the difference between the saccharine
One-dimensionality of canned chrysanthemum
Tea. That - and the taste of brewed petals.

Bitterness rounds out the palate, and lends
Relief to (and from) sweetness. It provides

                     A clarity about love’s contours.

By Dominic Chua

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