Leftover

        adj. or n. (1891) : that has or have been left over : not used up or disposed of : surviving from an earlier time

 

xiao mei, xiao mei, they call you
mini-America, little beauty
stranger woman-girl

your body has more definition
than when you left at twelve
& nobody knows what to do with it

the men talk to you about choices
as in the ones they made for their wives
the women talk to you about children
but not the ones they buried in shame

they insist on being helpful
as in they don’t want you to be
one of those, as in wan le, as in

game over, which you used to confuse
with its homophone, as in
frolicked, as in finished joy

they gave you a name & once again
you had no say in the matter, as in
abandon, as in you leave home
to find it had left you

Copyright © 2018 Yuxi Lin. Reprinted with permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in The Southern Review, Autumn 2018.