S. J. J. F. Rutherford is a pen name of Simon Patton’s. He lives with his partner, two cats and Sealyham the Terrier near Chinaman Creek in Central Victoria, and translates Chinese poetry. He spent five months working in Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong last year, and lived near the Tai Hang Tung and Nam Shan Housing Estates.
 
 
 

Cafe (Tai Hang Tung Estate大坑東邨)

Ice in the tall glass cloaked with cola jostles bubbles of fizz, and
I feel this heat tell only the hard wood under my tail-bone. The
TV is mute: it addresses the room graphically, in fluent Chinese
characters, beneath perfectly made-up faces lip-reading “news”.
The kitchen, for its few orders, roars industrially out of the
wok, while — in the centre of his Imaginary Loungeroom — a
man chats through a smart hair-cut deeper into his mirror.