Self Portrait as a Summer
In June I became my mother / who became a ching-chong joke / whose eyes became plasma / whose daughter became regenerative / and in July I became a ching-chong joke / and my sister became the declaration / whose sisters became the machete / whose shoes were stolen under the last of light / and in August I became the burnt / and in August I lived in the nation / and the nation burnt its walls / leaving its pieces to wash by morning / so tomorrow I’ll become the morning / my blood will become theirs / and they will smell still / like the people they were before /
A Call with Family
on the phone,
my mother crushes
爱, a single bit of
jasmine between
her lips. my teeth
taste like glue. my
teeth taste like sun.
how do you say
uterus in tradition?
i have to ask the
black screen for
directions, but it
never returns
with permissions;
it never gives
me a kiss, or
returns on sunday
with the answers.
***
Photograph of Amy Gong Liu courtesy of Amy Gong Liu.
