Fortune Cookies, Too
The son becomes the father
when the father passes
your obligation becomes your life
We replace the old
hardwood living room
with thick gray carpet
it’s not an accident if you allow it
Katie’s waist thins over time
stretches mark the months
Billy depended on her
make sure to caress them
when you bathe
Mother spends the day with her grandson
the sparkling boy waits
to become a man
everyone loves you, she says
His first word makes Katie
feel like a mother
his second muffled
just too obscure
The cognac is to remember him.
everything else; habits over time
never too much
just enough to keep warm.
He can’t be replaced
she screams from the bathroom
we’ll find him if it’s the last thing I do
The salt in her tears
remind me to keep her
face on my neck
when she cries
Don’t try seeing around corners
make slow wide turns
a moderate speed is key
His face blank when he sees
his younger sisters
distorted reflections of time
sometimes the experience
is neither joy nor sorrow
Katies weeps as she squeezes
and feels him all over.
make sure parts are not missing.
-Saechao
Category Archives: Mien
Poem – The Next Day
The Next Day
As our language thrived
father faltered in his bed
trying to push his once strong thoughts
the noise
he succumbed to
the pitter patter
beeps from machines
sounds of the gong
My nephew blows into a fifty year-old
rhino horn for fun
delight
mimicking the old man
in flowing silks and flat linens
he hops around like a manic Easter Bunny
pink and red and white
flapping against the wind
According to records
he could have been fifty-five
the next day
but who knows
about the next day
she wakes and walks
into a room of smoke
smell of freshly slaughtered swine
the horror hidden when she sees
the lips of the creature, already puckered
pursed for a devilish kiss
Shrill cry of the child
ripping the room’s sheet of smoke
I hand my young nephew to her
the reluctant acceptance
he reaches right for her brown tresses
still ruffled from the cat nap
I almost felt bad about sleeping with her
the night before
we were quiet, almost motionless. Breathless.
The unfamiliar room.
I wanted a new life
a replacement
someone new to love
the timing was wrong
it never happened
The words terse,
ensuring no slips.
Nothing wasted,
nothing given.
Guarding ourselves;
what can happen.
Oh, the memories.
The soundtrack the light provides
the clichés we avoid with might
we don’t want to make love
pushing the trap away
the scorn we possess
And we watched then waited.
And we talked then waited.
Driving through the hills
with the beautiful trees
dying again with their sunset foliage:
This exodus into the ground.
-Saechao
Poem – Wanderers
Wanderers
Looking for a place to settle
my Father walked me
between the tracks
leading to the next town, our town
with a different name, familiar enough.
Trains push air under dust,
it is so dry, our breathing;
like eating dirt
from the earth.
It’s a drought, he says,
not looking at me.
Our destination
is not visible
curves hide
what we’re looking for
we see buildings
above treetops
Later,
Father pours Tennessee whiskey
from his flask
onto my bee sting, Russian vodka
into my shot glass;
we bond that way
desecrating our bodies.
My Father talked
into the night,
our loose rhetoric.
His stories’ morals
I can’t live with
his heroes
suffering
less than he has.
I mumble his words to my wife,
not verbatim,
and in English;
I don’t remember exactly what he said.
My artificial intelligence,
resident of a child’s closet,
remains untouched, unblemished.
-Xiong
Fiction – The Dragon’s Wok
Chapter One – The Dragon’s Wok
-Saechao
He catches me trying to slip out of the door.
In a game we’ve been playing since his third day home from the hospital, the difference now is he can chase me, albeit with wobbly steps. Like always, he looks up, eyes questioning where and why I’m going. At first, I stopped so he wouldn’t cry, though he had never given me any reason to believe he would. Now, I want to be caught. I want to explain the destination, to promise an early return, to kiss him on his forehead.
We meet halfway in the living room and I scoop him off the carpet.
He leans his padded cheek against my ear as we twirl in front of my mother.
Turning my head, my lips to his ears, I whisper words he has heard many times, a secret I hope he remembers. Before too long, my restless mother asks to hand him over, and I kiss his forehead before holding him out to her arms. I can feel them watching me walk out of the room and the front door.
Poem – Migrant Burden
Migrant Burden
Migraine headache
a migrant backache
from father to son.
An American daughter-in-law
our burden together.
Donna wears her emotions
on a flushed pale face
washed with ivory cream
what she brings to the table
white rice
mother taught her to wash and steam.
Her father and brother wonder
why I never finished business school,
but her mother is happy
her daughter is happy.
We drink red wine, Sonoma,
Sunday afternoons,
after everyone gets home from church;
sitting on the verandah
watching working cars go by
speaking of Marx and Aquinas
they are intrigued
but don’t understand
my religion
something Donna picked up
when we met at Catholic school
after late morning mass
I was studying alone
in my room
my father wanted a private education
I don’t show the pain
father says I have
a hard case, a soft heart
hidden from the people I know
especially Donna’s little brother
whom I gave shooting lessons
aim and technique—
elbow in, shoulders squared
—but no concentration,
unnerved easily
something his father detests
my son’s burden
a homeless father
telling him he needs to be home
by midnight instead of orchard parties
surrounding pumpkin patches,
where the girls are prone
to get naked and pregnant.
-Saechao
Poem – Simple Clarity
Simple Clarity
For Jean Donnelly
Oh, Jean, it’s okay
If you do it beautifully,
My name’s rhyme
Nothing else should
Clarify so simple
The pen’s condensation
A long draught
The ink’s condescension
A first draft
The end product
begins logic
Who creates
I know
I shall meet—
The scholars—and
The daffodils—
At night the moon—
Diving into the—
Neither rosy nor
prim is like—
My country is—cross
A young boy lying
Underneath crying
So much—
—as such,
I will sleep
Near it.
-O'Connell
Poem – Untitled
Untitled
T’is the difference between
bad poetry and good:
Bad poetry sometimes enthralls
the way a pretty girl standing at the bar
attracts the eyes
and tugs impulses.
Good poetry
moves.
-Saechao
Poem – Fortune Cookies
Fortune Cookies
My father speaks
before the family at the dinner table.
[My mother provides the translations.]
Upon birth
I cried, coming out headfirst.
“Happy days are just over the mountaintop.
The struggle has ended.”
She brings countless plates;
frisbees with food for my American friends.
He eyes them and grins.
(Chew. Don’t choke.
Moderation is key.)
His face is flushed; blushing
from the cognac.
A request.
Do we have any rice wine?
He smiles.
“Soon, a lifelong friend shall be made.”
Katie wants a platinum ring with diamonds,
not gold bars and a beheaded chicken.
“You have a strong desire.
But wait, family interests come first.”
Je t’aime, mais j’adore mon père.
Oui, je comprend...
mais, voulez-vous coucher avec moi?
It’s a romance language.
(Fuck you!) Aix meih!
In the foothills,
the sun shines on the priest.
I do.
“Faulty confessions—
are next to innocence.”
Yie mv hiuv.
During the holidays,
our waists become thicker,
the air becomes thinner.
“Hire a blonde secretary,” he says.
We eat Vietnamese take-out,
splattering oyster sauce over the contracts.
She wears glossy lipstick,
on her neck, a crucifix.
Katie sponges my father’s back
and lights sandalwood incense at night,
burning my nasal cavity.
He whispers, “Your wisest counselor is you.”
Mother’s sobbing
sounds like laughter
when she forgets a word.
Katie holds her hand,
they stare through the silent crowd across the room:
an uninvited stranger
needs to be fed.
-Saechao
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