For my father
My father has no friends. He spends
all his time at work. My father
doesn’t speak with anyone outside of work
not even his brother
even though their parents are dead and
all they’ve got left is one another.
When I tell my father this he shakes his
head and smiles the smile
in which one side kicks up more than the other.
He says I got you.
My father says this in English even though
his native language is Chinese. Because he can’t
swallow the shape of his childhood inflections just
yet my father has an accent when
speaking in English, whereas
I do not. Sometimes I’m
talking to a boy who I like and who
I want to impress a little bit so I tell him
that my native language is Chinese. It’s a lie
but he doesn’t know and is duly impressed. It’s a lie
but my father hums Yes is true, you remember? It’s a lie
but maybe it’s true and
if it is true
what a strange sort of tragedy,
that I’ve lost something so primitive
so utterly.
I feel like a fraud when I introduce myself to my father’s brother,
my name lies stupidly dull and fat and frozen
in my mouth.
When my father finally speaks
to his brother it is an apology
for how my name won’t melt in my own mouth.
My Mother Tastes America
After the plane was landed
and the ferry was boarded
and the taxi was taken
and she was deposited
in front of a gray building with words she
had only seen in her textbooks
my mother realized she was hungry.
At this time she had been completely alone
without anything/anyone
in this new world.
My mother curled her fingers around the 100
dollars her mother had slipped into her pocket ––
the last time her mother would ever slip anything into her pocket ––
and decided to buy bananas.
She stopped in front of
a dirty store
and asked
in her thick, inconsistent tongue
if they sold fruit.
The man in front bared his yellow teeth at her.
Speak English, he growled.
My mother kept her hands in her pockets
turned the way she had come
tracing her steps
back to square one
back to the gray building.
In her new windowless room she bit her tongue,
determined not to cry.
As blood colored the white of her smile
my mother tasted America.