Dream Street
Jennifer Wong
It wouldn’t have made sense
to go back, not even
for a nostalgic visit.
The houses have been torn down,
I’ve heard, by bulldozers.
Each cobblestone laboriously
hurled off the street.
The rich have moved in
to a street of mansions
and private, gated gardens.
The magnolia trees were gone.
Don’t ask me how.
The grocer run by a kind
Sikh, was the last to go.
On his last day, he gave away
the fruits for free. So many
mangoes and lychees left.
It wouldn’t have made sense
even to go back
to snap a picture.
The rich wouldn’t allow it.
There’s a sign right there:
trespassers: penalty £5000.
But each time, each count
of magnolia
bears the size of hope.
Jennifer Wong is the author of Light Year (Nine Arches Press, 2026), 回家 Letters Home (Nine Arches Press, 2020), and pamphlets including time difference (Verve, 2024) and Diary of a Miu Miu Salesgirl (Bitter Melon Poetry). She has a PhD in creative writing from Oxford Brookes University. She is the author of Identity, Home and Writing Elsewhere in Contemporary Chinese Diaspora Poetry (Bloomsbury, 2023) and a co-editor of State of Play: Poets of East and Southeast Asian Heritage in Conversation (Outspoken Press, 2023) and Where Else: An International Hong Kong Poetry Anthology (Verve, 2023). She is a visiting lecturer at University of Hong Kong for Spring 2026. Currently, she is also editing a Rebecca Swift Foundation anthology entitled Woman, Mapped (Fly on the Wall Press, 2026).
