My Swans Are In Red, White, and Blue

dragon from the east
eagle from the west
me behind the wallpaper
struggling to see past
walls of simple architecture

between my family and this land
is a culture gap that has swallowed
many before us, who have crossed oceans
to seek a life that’ll be easier on their backs

but i’m the one dizzying
from an identity that can't seem to hold steady
call me foreign body
Chinese, but raised American

so tell me, how can i love
the fireworks and red blazing villages
of culture-filled Asia when i’ve barely touched
its sun-baked dirt of rice fields
it is not memory, not nostalgia

another vision painted by my
grandparents of proud Asia
whom i try to love but can never feel
her Yangtze River in my blood

this disconnect has lived
with me since the very beginning
growing as if it had something at its core
i claim this bloodline with doubt
it feels like a stolen identity

the only roots to this part of me
are existent in the Sundays
spent in the suffocating brick walls
of Chinese school
and in the holding of my breath
through the incessant clouds
of cigarette smoke on Chinatown sidewalks
but that was years ago

my name is a canyon
the divide between two shores
and i rein two tongues
stumble over the roots of each
speak visiter language by mistake
but i'm not littered with broken english
the words are loud and clear and yet still hazy

i am no phoenix
no nine-tailed fox
no buffalo
or turkey
just the ocean that lies between
the calling of paper lantern nights
and Fourth of July
Lunar New Year
and the ball drop at Manhattan
the red in China
and the red in America too

start a new life
with the two halves of me
facing each other in a bracket
(Asian American)
and finally feel complete