Simulacra
It's not that the rains have rolled back up to the ceiling. It's not that the frost has stopped flirting with the dunegrass. My mother's eyes are glass: she writes me what she sees there. Duck waddling highway, sideways raccoon pus, mutant sunflower with a yen for fertilizer. She has no time for wordshit. Her older sister tells me my mother doesn't understand much of poetry. Why am I resistant? The camera's already been here.
Credit
Copyright © 2010 by Ching-In Chen. Used with permission of the author.
Author
Ching-In Chen
Ching-In Chen is a genderqueer Chinese American writer, community organizer, and teacher. They are the author of recombinant (Kelsey Street Press, 2017) and The Heart’s Traffic (Arktoi/Red Hen Press, 2009).
A Kundiman and Lambda Fellow, they have also been awarded residencies and fellowships from Callaloo, The Watering Hole, Can Serrat, Jack Straw Cultural Center, the Millay Colony for the Arts, Imagining America, EmergeNYC, the Intercultural Leadership Institute, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Date Published
01/01/2010