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that I was born here
in a small red house
on the Connecticut River.
In the winter, we’d walk
by its strip of Listerine
blue ice,
knowing spring
would turn our prints
to water,
and water
to New England clay.
No. I am not
American.
For you, I am
from no country
but the East,
my body fragrant
as star anise.
From Unearthings (Tavern Books, 2018). Copyright © 2018 by Wendy Chen. Used with the permission of the author.
Weeks again of patient blues.
You folded down
into yourself.
You could bear no voice,
no face
but your own.
Not even mine,
which you said you loved.
The old films you watched without sleep,
you muted.
Grandma wondered as I cut her hair
if I would mourn her when she died.
On the television, a discordant chorus
of weeping girls
crowded around a white,
maternal sheet.
She doesn’t believe in the afterlife,
only the proper rites.
Ascending, wheeling
in a gyre, the roc
spreads his wings
ninety thousand li.
Bearing the blue sky,
he looks down, surveying
the little kingdoms of Man.