the dissipating of cerulean clouds by Winifred Mok

i.m.

29 August 2003 - 5 May 2025

Before the smartphone there was rising air:

ICQ, Messenger, chatrooms, Skype. Calling cards

with 20-digit PINs memorised from use

or yearning. It was pre-Facebook, WhatsApp, Zoom:

students striding through heavy rain of expectation

forecasting flashes of neural networks in maturing minds

calculating costs, the exchange rate for tuition, rent,

inevitable loneliness.

When homesick winds gathered, we waited

for the right time

to call home

or the shared landline in a hall,

in America, in Europe…

Strangers scrawled messages

left by the phone,

the miscalculated math of a wrong timezone.

It was a long distance tether tying us together.

Long nights of being present

just there

a screen connecting two rooms: study, laundry,

lifethings done separately, at the same time.

All those drizzly, downdraft nights

we’d fall asleep in a Skype-blue glow

until that final chime.

____________

Winifred Mok is a poet, filmmaker and podcaster whose work explores the spaces of language, culture, and identity. Based in the UK, her writing has appeared in various publications, and her poetry has been shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize.