“Grey Days” by Renee Melchert Thorpe

Grey Days
by Renee Melchert Thorpe

Rashed and raw Hong Kong,
I heave a grey day sigh.
Out there:

Dense, low figments
clamp the city, misting the favoured
and the forgotten, any

and all. This secret rooftop
escape is a good place
to look down

on the fog,
while at the same time,
this rough brick, resisting old

paint, makes it a rush
to imagine
that a stained girl like me

shares the same shade of future
as the pampered daughter
in the penthouse

just underfoot.
But I don’t feel the same
today. I nudge the young boy

here with me. 
Oh, that way he can lean his chest
against this blocky wall

as we witness 
the muting of the taxi klaxon
and the dulling

of the spearhead highrises
out there
in Kowloon.

_{How to cite: Thorpe, Renee Melchert. “Grey Days.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 05 Oct. 2020, hkprotesting.com/2020/10/05/grey-days/.}

_{Photograph © Oliver Farry.}

Renee Melchert Thorpe (b. 1959, USA) moved to Hong Kong in 1989.  A painter and short story writer, she was first published in local fiction contests. She was a founding volunteer in Hong Kong’s first international literary festival and was published in Dim Sum and the Asia Literary Review. In 1999, she earned BA’s in English Literature and Fine Arts at the University of Hong Kong. She made Bali her base from 2001, where she has assisted in every Ubud Writers and Readers Festival and is a frequent contributor to the Bali Advertiser and local poetry slams. She is currently working on a novel.