Bone-deep

(To celebrate the beginning of our poetry unit, I decided to share a poem I wrote recently.)

Bone-deep

(My father keeps a notebook full of names.)

 

The paper is brittle, curled, faded, almost

as if it was slipped into liquid amber, sticky resin dried to preserve the

 

stark black strokes, ink glided over.

A collection of strokes is a character; a line of characters is a name.

 

And there lies my family—

 

the living, the deceased, and the memories—

 

wrought in a language I can only half-speak.

 

阿姨

(Āyí)

My mother has a sister who lives in Hangzhou. Not the

Hangzhou of sleek skyscrapers reflecting silver on the West Lake, but the

Hangzhou of cracked asphalt, rusted iron gates, paintless walls, and

a square bordered by four identical apartment complexes.

Once my family chose the wrong one and climbed six flights to the top, only

to be greeted by a stranger.

But this time we correct our mistake, and we carry

our luggage up the winding staircase

where beyond the door,

my mother’s sister, my Ayi, waits to receive us.

 

孬孬

(Nāo nāo)

Ayi’s home has changed very little since I last saw it. Nevertheless,

time shifts and wears away familiarity, and with it,

comfort. Open stares become shy glances directed towards

Nao Nao, who is too tall to fit within short expectations, who

speaks to me in quiet and cautious tones because I am foreign

to here and to the streets he weaves so seamlessly through.

We arrive at a convenience store; he buys me matcha-flavored ice cream. It melts

smooth and sweet and silk-like on my tongue, and

a thousand steps and six flights of stairs later, the taste

still lingers.

 

苹果

(Píngguǒ)

For just one day, my family takes to the highway and enters the Hangzhou

of wide sidewalks, of automatic doors, of tiled walls, of Ping Guo.

She too lives in an apartment complex, but it towers above the city, above Ayi and Nao Nao,

so when she plays “Swan Lake” on the piano, her agile hands

coaxing the melody until it floats, suspended

amongst the clouds, a sliver of envy rises within me and stretches into a vast gap reaching from

her balcony to the ground.

But then she asks me to play after, and years of practice soften the keys to my touch.

That is when I am reminded that I am older than her, that her eyes still hold wonder,

because she is the one looking up to me.

 

小惠子

(Xiǎo huìzi)

The difference between Hangzhou and Yiwu

is the distance traveled by train and the span of increased grandeur, and

swathed in all this fortune is

Xiao Hui Zi. Her life is a delicacy

attentively assembled by the manufacturing company

her mother owns. Upon my visitation, she and her mother bestow presents—

confectionaries, hair clips, compliments

—as freely as air. Yet when I indulge Xiao Hui Zi in a game where the only rule

is to make her smile, I realize it is companionship which

she cherishes most.

 

伯伯

(Bóbo)

This time, the road outlasts the time from dawn to dusk and descends

into mountains, whose gentle crests are curved lower than city buildings, whose paths descend

into a town even lower. The scenery is tinted by

dim shade, faint lampposts, muddied walls,

yet when my uncle, Bobo, brings out a homegrown watermelon, he cuts through it using a

knife that gleams sharply with the silver of skyscrapers. It is

red. Vibrant and unmistakable as the

paper envelopes we generously gift and graciously receive, as the

love that beats in our chests and pulses in our veins, as the blood that

binds us across oceans, across skies, and the ties between—

 

Heaven and Earth

(Our heritage is traced on stone.)

In between the dips in the mountains,

where the first shards of

daylight cast this humble town into color, lies the

purpose for our presence

and the

proof of our existence.

So my father and my uncle chase

the rising sun into the horizon, where

stone slopes culminate into

stone graves.

 

杰梅

(Jié méi)

Incense wafts into the air, potent as

steam that rises from the center of a kitchen table, where chopsticks withdraw and

 

goodbyes fall, where even as the table empties, it is still full

with leftover grains of rice.

 

Smoke obscures the tomb, a transient silver shroud,

but the names of my ancestors are carved

 

in more than the tangible,

in more than a language I can only half-speak.

 

Because my father keeps a notebook full of names, and

 

mine

 

is one of them.

 

I Leave From Beijing

(Even as the plane ascends higher, invisible silhouettes remain in the window view.)

 

And maybe south in Hangzhou,

 

where skyscrapers blur into silver reflections on the West Lake,

Ayi says goodbye to Nao Nao at the door before sending him to

dash down six flight of stairs into the summer heat with the taste of

matcha lingering on his tongue, 

 

and maybe one day,

 

Nao Nao wanders astray from the streets he knows so well to where the city

transforms and blossoms, leaving behind his

simple neighborhood of timeworn buildings for towering, glass complexes so that

from her balcony, Ping Guo can see his figure running across the wide sidewalks below,

 

and maybe once a month,

 

Ping Guo stands by a pair of long metal rails, patiently waiting for

a train to whisk her away to the bustling markets of Yiwu because when she steps off,

Xiao Hui Zi stumbles over and tugs her toward her mother’s office, showering Ping Guo with

confectionaries and hair clips and compliments,

 

and maybe each year,

 

Xiao Hui Zi watches her mother write a letter full of well-wishes before slipping money into a

paper envelope, and it travels to a simple, beautiful town where

Bobo slices into a home-grown watermelon, shoes padding past

dim shade, faint lampposts, muddied walls,

 

and maybe if his eyes search far enough, he’ll see

 

how the road slopes

downward, plunging deep into the mountains, past

tall grass and short trees, onto the

remnants of a dirt path now revived, onto an

ancient, roughly-carved staircase

—which ages, dies, reawakens—

to deliver us, to return us, once more to our ancestors’ graves.