Ping Yi works in public service, and writes poetry, fiction and travelogues. His work has appeared in Litro (Editor’s Pick), London Grip, Meniscus, Defenestration, Short Humour, The Shirley Society and trAce, and is forthcoming in La Piccioletta Barca and Dreich. Ping Yi is from Singapore, and has also lived in Cambridge, UK, and Boston.

Mum’s the Word

Mother knows the best swear words

in the most delightful dialects:

poetic torrid Teochew or Chaoshan

guttural hexing Hokkien or Fukien,

which sounds even better, and

just plain highway Mandarin.



When harvesting this fruit

abloomin’, it is crucial to stay

the heck away from Ground Zero

have some Other trigger her

while we shelter afar innocent

committing her oral plume to heart.



Mother is magnificent

be it justifiable road rage

wilful deafness of family or

an adversary true, loosing

her awesome vocabulary

word and inflexion undreamt of



remixed into unearthly resonance

as her psychic armoury

deflects karmic evil with flair

decimates them fools bringin’ it.

Such power I squirrel away

eyes dancing saucer wide



chortling at my growing arsenal.

Never mind there is no manual

so my next chance to practise

a volley on young Sis,

I earn three of the best

on a body part of my choosing.