Fried Beancurd Bun
A Story of What Fades
A stall in a Singaporean coffeeshop, stirred by the morning bustle.
The tau kwa pau (beancurd bun) stall comes to life.
The bun itself --
A tradition that bides time.
🔶✨🔥🍞✨🔶
An orange spark lights
Beancurd stirs with a sizzle
Warm scent of childhood
Crooks its fingers
To the mouths that wait
🔶✨🔥🍞✨🔶
Beancurd bun aglow
A golden halo enwraps
The flame roars
Licks the fingers that reach
Then stills.
🔶✨🔥🍞✨🔶
It quiets.
Red embers amber.
Beancurd's scent fades
Reaching fingers withdraw
With time.
🔶✨🔥🍞✨🔶
The fire dies.
Fried beancurd bun's scent
Forever in the air
For the fingers that will not
Get to reach.
🔶✨🔥🍞✨🔶
Taw Kwa Pau, fried to perfection and filled with minced pork, sliced chili and a complimentary egg, was commonly served in coffee shops and hawker centres in Singapore a few decades ago.
A tradition of old, one my grandma held on to.
The flame that prepares it still burns-
If only in the heart.
🔶✨🔥🍞✨🔶
Original free verse poem by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
For Vocal's The Last Flame Challenge.
About the Creator
Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin
Hi, i am an English Language teacher cum freelance writer with a taste for pets, prose and poetry. When I'm not writing my heart out, I'm playing with my three dogs, Zorra, Cloudy and Snowball.
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