This selection, chosen by guest editor Alexis Ivy, is from Reacquaint by Allison Thung (kith books 2024).
Singular
Say We,
while offering no
further context.
Tell me—
We went on a vacation
We adopted a cat
We bought a house—
and make no
clarification on who
We comprises.
For I live vicarious—
revelling in your
contentment of
being part of an
unquestionable unit;
and
feeling such safety
in another you would
refer to the self in
the plural without
fear of losing the
singular.
Allison Thung is a Singaporean poet. She is the author of Reacquaint (kith books, 2024) and Molar (kith books, 2024). Her poetry has been published in ANMLY, Sixth Finch, Cease, Cows, Gone Lawn, and elsewhere, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and Best Small Fictions. Allison is an Assistant Poetry Editor at ANMLY. 
Alexis Ivy is a 2018 recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in Poetry. She is the author of Romance with Small-Time Crooks (BlazeVOX [books], 2013), and Taking the Homeless Census (Saturnalia Books, 2020) which won the 2018 Saturnalia Editors Prize. She is co-editor of Essential Voices: A COVID-19 Anthology (West Virginia University Press, 2023). A recent resident of the Sundress Academy for the Arts, she lives in her hometown Boston, working as an advocate for the homeless, and teaching in the PoemWorks community.
