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the poet
Suyin Du Bois (she/her) is a poet of mixed Chinese-Malaysian and Belgian heritage. She lives in London, and studied for her BA in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick. In her most recent writing, Suyin has explored her multi-cultural heritage and life through food. Her poems have appeared in Propel Magazine, Freeze Ray Poetry, Zindabad and Stanzas, and she was anthologised in Fourteen Publishing's Bi+ Lines: An Anthology of Contemporary Bi+ Poets. When not obsessing over word choices, Suyin spends her time building an early-stage start-up that aims to give NHS hospital staff 24/7 access to nutritious, affordable food.
the poems
Ode to Kaya
Egg jam first on my young tongue, palm sugar
sweet, coconut milk rich. Thick layers on charred
toast, salted butter cubes between, melting in Penang
sweat. My Goh Ee Poh stood for hours stirring you
in that double-boiled heat. Exports to be swaddled,
twisted into pink and green plastic bags, nestled
amongst swimming costumes and sundresses, rituals
to ward off mid-air leaks in the 14 hours from one home
to the other. Back in England your layers thinned,
our knives more sparing after each spread.
After Goh Ee Poh grew too frail, aunties and uncles
gifted us store-bought surrogates. You were labelled Kaya.
Our cupboards filled with your empties, aides-mémoire
of indulgence repurposed to house fragrant rice, Chinese
mushrooms, our longing for Nonya flavours.
By the time pandan leaves arrive in Chinatown, I am grown
up, have my own kitchen where I can stand for hours.
But Goh Ee Poh has long since condensed
into photographs, so I sweeten my never-asked
regret, trace down someone else’s heirloom recipe.
You are needy, threaten lumps, failure, but I stir and stir
like her, until my spoon draws the right depths of lineage.
I lift a heap of you into my mouth, tongue
your clotted grainy sweetness.
The First Mouthful
In the back corner of Pulau Tikus market, tucked in
behind uncles pressing fresh santan, trays of kueh
steamed overnight, gutted fish, beside batik dresses
and the energetic ladling of hawker sellers, I sit still–
watch tiny bubbles on the surface of my koay teow th’ng.
I’m not sure what’s woken me so early: jet lag
or my stomach aching for hot soup in the heat, for kopi
strong and Carnation-swirled, for the kinship of their steam.
I pull fine white noodles from the broth’s well-oiled clarity,
wind them into the flat base of my spoon, chopstick up:
a slither of duck, crunchy pork lard, one wide-blinked
iris of chilli padi to top the pile. Nudging the spoon back
into the liquid so it wells up around this first mouthful,
I catch the curious eye of the uncle at the next table.
Where are you from?
Wah eh mama si Penang lang.
The words mis-intoned, or too unexpected
from this face, he frowns.
The rooster on the side of my bowl hasn’t yet crowed me
fully awake, so I say London and we both smile. I turn back,
slurp my spoonful down – feel the quick slip of the koay teow,
the stock radiating through me, the chilli biting at my throat.
On The First Cold Day
of Winter, You Ask for Rusks
Tannie Noeline’s recipe calls for true
boeremeisie quantities, so I adapt
each measure by awkward fractions—
still the batter laps the lip of my bowl
as I wed flour to crushed bran to buttermilk.
The last step says dry. I had to google it
the first time, and even on the thirteenth
I worry when to take them out of the oven,
leave them in overnight. In the morning,
our house smells of a hunger that’s spread
wide since our last trip back to your childhood home,
my windfall one. We don’t wait. We dunk
rough chopped rusks into our coffee, and you tell me
once more about your Ouma’s aniseed beskuit,
so tall and arid, they’d absorb half a mug
in one dip, hang sodden only long enough for your mouth
to get under its fall. We reminisce about road trips
between Hermanus and Bothaville, how I make us pause
at every padstal, seek out the most tempting treats
– banana and bran, pumpkin seed and apricot –
how every homemade rusk tempts us. You remind me
that mine are your favourite, and I reply Jy is my gunsteling.
And we keep going until the bottom of our mugs is a beach
of sunflower seeds and crumbs with the tide sucked out.
Publishing credits
Ode to Kaya: Propel Magazine (Issue One)
The First Mouthful: Bi+ Lines: An Anthology
of Contemporary Bi+ Poets (Fourteen Publishing)
On The First Cold Day of Winter, You Ask for Rusks:
exclusive first publication by iamb