1 poem

By alisha wong

Farmington Senior High School

grandmother, i

know you stretched your back last week, made it an earthen husk to magpie nests
for us. afterward, you reached out for my wrist, cast blunt words about my

bird-boned limbs. cantonese was a wooden sword I could never quite wield
and mine was in a chest belonging to bygone openings. when I was twelve,
your son told me stories of the sparrows calling you out by name, watching your spine

furl like telephone wire, lips sunken by taoist prayers.
each night peeled across the sky like the tangerines you left by my bedside:
would i be able to carve my tongue into your language when you ask me

about my day? I know you would’ve sewn my frayed words together, made sure each thread
was silver-braided, wrapped yourself in them like a shawl until
every eventide witnessed you holding its wrist. yesterday, dusk was lodged

in your throat and I saw time pacing with you. I’m afraid I haven’t
given you enough as I gaze at the extra eggs you quietly roll onto my plate.
your hands like hourglass —watching the years slip through— gnarled with hieroglyphs

and you boil sesame paste for me. how could I cast myself
into exile from you when we are of the same blood but of a vernacular that was never
truly mine? so I thank you for letting me anchor myself on the root of your knees

that pressed against foreign soil. thank you for walking me along the
folds of moonlight when no one else was there to shoo away the night.
thank you for cocooning me in red-ribboned folktales as I grew into my skin.

so here I am, trying to stitch my cantonese from stray wool under the willow leaves
and mend you a coat for any road you travel with a soft 多謝,
the faint echoes of a poem whistling in the wind.