A Vietnamese Grandmother and Her Americanized Granddaughter Meet in the Middle of a Blank Page
by Isabel Quynh Ryan
My grandmother
builds a pyramid of gỏi cuốn
by dipping round sheets
of rice paper one at a time.
Tapioca flour in warm water.
She holds the unfinished poem up:
droplets of a forgotten love
language collect back
in the bowl. What scattered
light passes through
the page guides
my eyes to her
pinched fingers. Reminds me
of clothespins. I spring from knees,
check on the linen
hung to dry
a story away from clouds
of dust from dieseled motorbikes.
Before any filling, the rice sheet
must soften. Be impatient & risk
cracking the face of the moon.
She says this somehow
in our silent work.
In her corner of Saigon
there are no gardens,
no room for freshness,
unless you transform
what is old. We have only
leftovers. I plant
rows of soft cucumber wedges, familiar
slices of pork belly, tawny carrots, thin
chives on a bed of vermicelli.
Her silver head tosses back
in laughter as I hold my roll
up, an offering. It takes both
hands. Its contents almost burst
from the silky cocoon. Her own
modest and intact.
Both taste the same
prefaced by the tang
of oyster
sauce & garlic.
Her eyes the color
of tamarind & burnt sugar
close with each bite.