I once thought that the whole earth could fit under your damp eyelashes. And I guess I was wrong, because when I was pulling black braided rope through the well of the village town, the sky stretched itself out into the shape of a rice field. I stood at one end, you on the opposite side, and we waved to each other over a rippling sea of green. Then July grew out its long nails, dulled its blades in wet oil, and returned to us in the careful shape of love. Winter culled my mercy, but still there was you, sitting across the table from me while I kneaded my remaining clemency between my hands. There were huge, swathing harvests that year for cabbage and commiseration – everything but the tender give of your soft floured skin. I still thought that the world fit within the neat shape of your crescent fingernails. But maybe that was only because I’d grown up seeing you fold and tuck everything I knew about love into the neat dumplings that we stored in the freezer to boil for dinner. I tried my hand at doing the same, because while my mouth didn’t know the unforgiving shape of your language, my fingers could attempt to parse it out into rice cake and black sesame. Here laid the countertops where the granite swallowed my desire before I could digest the feeling. Here sat boiling water in a pot that you cooked jook in throughout my childhood. Here is a youth stained yellow with tea and ashy memories of song. Making tangyuan is difficult because each dumpling wanted to burst, but I was afraid you’d take that the wrong way. Pinpricks of light. I crawled over magpies to get here. You showed me how to crack an egg into sugared water the same way you taught me how to fold my wontons, and the cobweb nest wreathed the first dream I could kindle into existence. I made you tangyuan. I love you. I tried my best. I love you. You don’t need to buy the frozen ones from the grocery store anymore, see? I love you. You pull the bowl close. The ceramic is warm, very warm. I’ve slipped myself into the bowl too. If this day was more honeyed, it’d be saccharine. But it’s not. It’s not too sweet at all. Just enough so that it flecks in your teeth and stretches down the long pull of your throat. And still it lingers, still it remains, and because it is love we call it mercy, because it is piety we call it kindness, because I am your daughter; I hope it never ends.
Visual Credit: Nancy My Tran, Design Intern
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