1885:
I am deposited
into the arms of a
blurry-faced workwoman who
sews sorrow with threads
of purpose, beading so I may
teethe,
taste the fruits of a faraway land
even once the boat has departed.
Her feet firmly planted on the dock
as I cast out a line
from the soul she once breathed
into my body
A red-faced man cradles me,
singing softly words that
carry comfort without recognition,
xiǎo mèngxiǎng jiā, xiǎo mèngxiǎng jiā,
hǎohǎo xiūxí…
little dreamer, little dreamer,
— I am the light in our squalid shed
rest well, rest easy,
with the weightlessness of
what is to come.
It’s 1888,
the entropy of San Francisco
pressing in on all sides
clumsy hands, rough with heartache and homesick
pass me from place to place as
the man—my father—rolls cigars
under a searing sun,
its blazing yellow orb
like the haunting stare of
the ghost tiger hung for all to see.
yellow is putrid, i hate the moon woman
who tells me i am like the fever,
too bestial for her children.
I hate more the lǎoshī who scolds me
for my yellow skirt —
we’re not allowed to wear our skin, she says.
I taste her words on my tongue
like acid,
oh these fruits are full of seeds,
astringent & amaroidal, tearing at my
flesh so they can burrow into my heart,
grow roots that claw up my esophagus,
gasping for air, for speech
for words I cannot—will not—say.
a lifetime of self-hatred,
I watch my father wither away
in his cigars, the tendrils of his soul
rise like smoke to touch the sky
where my mother resides, long-forgotten
restful soul.
I see the sunrise like her embrace
offering a new beginning, an invitation
to burn me from the inside out, purge
what shame awaits, what forsaken identity
watches through my eyes but
remains unseen.
For those that came before,
I traipse a lurid wire of uncertainty
& go where I am unwelcome,
plant ideas where I am shooed away
but not before leaving
a piece of me
& saying my truth
—this is what i shall pass on.
I see my great grand-daughter,
hair of fire, skin of steel,
mind full of stones to throw,
burdened by the seed
of her mother &
her mother
& me at the very root
sowing rage &
resentment into
the fields of knowledge, of forgotten ghosts,
laying fodder for the beast
so that someday I will ascend,
return to the warmth
of the woman who promised
me eternity
& a life somewhere half-between
wonderful & feared.
Photo Credit: Kristoffer Trolle
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