While the exact text varies slightly depending on the anthology, the core of the is an ecstatic, sensory listing of local fruits, followed by a sharp, existential turn. Let us reconstruct a representative excerpt (paraphrased from his collected works):
In the 1960s and 70s, Singapore’s countryside was dotted with fruit orchards—in Kampong Lorong Buangkok, along the hills of Thomson, and in the rural stretches of Changi. By the 1980s, most were gone. The poem’s repeated question, "You ask for my home?" is rhetorical. The answer is not an address but a ghost. fruits poem by goh poh seng