The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Reacquaint by Allison Thung

Wardrobe Best Dressed

This selection, chosen by guest editor Alexis Ivy, is from Reacquaint by Allison Thung (kith books 2024).

Diagnosis

The doctor confirms it is run of the mill. The fix, a single injection, and to move as far away as I can. Since no follow-up is necessary, I leave that very night. At the apartment, I pack a bag of only essentials. Everything else I own, I burn, shred, or dump. In the airport, I revel in a cacophony of flight announcements and fellow redeye travellers rushing to their flights. When an open-mouthed cough sounds in the cabin, I frown but do not flinch. In my new kitchen, I enjoy a quick lunch of sashimi salad. As I dine by the window, sunlight bathes my face and arms. Post-meal, I remember to take a colourful assortment of macarons. As I do the dishes, summer breeze lifts my hair of consistent length. Inspiration strikes, and I stop to note lines in my leatherbound notebook. When I settle on my couch, I do not write this poem.      

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.

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