She will tell me herself that she has died.
She won't let anyone else call me from Singapore.
 
She will tell me first that my father has seen the lung specialist
who thinned his blood and helped him sleep better,
that Fourth Aunt has been diagnosed with breast cancer
and refuses to eat, that Raymond, my brother in law, is going
for minor heart surgery, or so he says. The girls are okay.
 
Finally she will tell me that she fell headlong from a bus,
like the time when bruises padded her eyes for weeks,
but this morning she could not get up from the road.
She had reached for the handrail, as I had urged her do,
but grabbed air,
 
like that day long ago, when crossing Orchard Road,
I snatched my hand from her,
for I was six.
 
Sorrow sorrow and sorrow.
She will compare one day to another. That's what the dead do.