A poem by Grace Yee: ‘A well-known male poet sniggered at the title. I took this as a sign to keep it'

The Guardian

2 days ago

in this charming quarter, someone always loses a shoe (a sneaker, a croc, a gladiator sandal)
on the last day of summer you waited for me by the green
gates. I rode up on my bicycle (ticking spokes and
trepidations) and you grinned from ear to ear – we are teeth
we are cheese we are pets in the city!
we stroll around the grounds weakly perpendicular
without maps or navigations. you lie spreadeagled on the
grass, my wings at your chest, the afternoon around us
nonchalant.
inside the windows are amber, blue and green, I
don't see horses grazing in the fields, I don't hear cicadas
mating. the corridor's a hushed limousine, your door yields
shelves of braille, and your room is a pink-striped
eiderdown –
premium economy, you said – I laughed and you
pushed me and I shrieked and we fell onto the bed and the
eiderdown kicked us off and shook its feathers all around us
'snow' began with a dream I had more than 20 years ago. In the dream there were green gates, a bicycle and a pink-striped eiderdown. At the time, my children were very young and my relationship was breaking down. The dream was a brief reprieve, a mellow not unpleasant yearning.
The highlight of my week then was a two-hour poetry class. It was there that I workshopped the first draft of 'snow', with its thinly veiled needs and apprehensions: 'friends', a 'red brick chapel', 'sticky feet' on 'cold linoleum'.
I read an early version of the poem at my first ever public reading, an open mic event. There were well-known poets there, most of them men. When I announced the title, one of them sniggered. I took this as a sign to keep the title.
When I revisited 'snow' this year, I began with the old dream notes and a journal I kept on a trip last year to my parents' ancestral villages in Guangdong, China. I was looking for in-the-world things to ground the original dreamscape.
The 'pets in the city' are the kittens for sale on a street corner near the Qingping Medicine Market in Guangzhou; 'amber, blue and green' is from the stained glass 'four seasons' windows that adorn early 20th-century houses in the countryside near Taishan; and 'shelves of braille' is borrowed from the reading room for the visually impaired at the Baiyun Library.
In terms of weight, 'snow' is much lighter than most of the poems I have written over the last few years. It is whimsical. I don't usually do whimsy.
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The final stanza has remained the same since the first draft – except for the phrase 'premium economy'. I like how this stanza begins with flight and ends with down.
Australian Poetry Month runs throughout August and includes festivals, events, workshops and a commissioned poem of the day brought to you by Red Room Poetry. Find out more here