A Simple Trajectory

May Yang

by HAUNTIE

Some time ago pale bodies slipped into Indochina and harvested

slave bodies to sow opium and mine silver. These slaves developed a

dependency on this unsustainable and temporary economy, becoming

heavily addicted to this intoxicating flower. Some no longer planted their

own food or raised their own livestock. A body from this time was that

of my grandmother’s. Impoverished—she was—mind, body and soul.

Strung out on the tar of this little flower, forgetting how and when to love

her children. A body that came to life through hers was my father’s. And

so it was that this boy would walk miles to school with maybe, sometimes

hardly ever, a palm-full of rice and a single chili pepper to sustain his body

for the duration of the day.

Night would fall,

and day would rise.

Then a secret war crept up so loud white minds shut it out

and all of humanity hushed it from the West to its East

and my grandfather went to war on the side that would win

doing these things, they couldn’t believe in

and maybe it was that they won, maybe

but the shackles of this flower brought my mother to my father

and the shackles of this flower brought my body to America

“Here I am,” i’ll say.

Here I am and I have to stay.

What are you? Where are you from? What did you come from?

i am a potent flower

stringing out your mind on the line after line

from the womb of a history birthed from white memory

i am American

i am good at forgetting

Poems