Potluck halfway to fruition when
my mother makes fire from her fingers.
Last words on an opening sentence
spill from her tongue, remember
you are three characters harnessed from iron,
remember, your skin sharpened
from the knives of the waves,
remember – why they
don’t return next door. She writes in
slant, the lanterns across the lawn
when they ask you where your
family is from, tell them—
From the belly of revolution, from the
blood of my grandfather when he
cut open his toes to bring my father home.
When they ask you where you’re from
say not your home, not your lampshade,
from the accolade of my tongue
I burn, when they ask who I turned for,
a conundrum from the skin of a martyr
American skin, words as though I learned anew
American lips that choke me,
declare surrender. Light from the mauve,
wander aimless in a land your own,
grain bursting into pearls on her sister’s neck,
two cities burning across my hands,
only to say, renounce her. Renounce the soil
from which you reap.
On foreign soil, from which your name
was fastened from the hands of
your people. Remember, she treads,
you are no liar.
Mimi Yang is a student, artist, and poet based in Shanghai. She spends her spare time chasing cryptids and investigating pseudo-sciences. She is on the constant search for more time, if anything else.
Eunoia Review 