Poetry

Lynn Nguyen Boland shares a poetic homily to her mother, meditating on memories of mothering and the complexities of belonging, heritage, language and home.

as my fever rides on
to a brighter & snowier peak
the tyrant of my heart texts me a HuffPo
article about the novel coronavirus

News came to me of two men falling from the sky after having been birthed from the steel, burning carcass of their mother.

To move to another suburb, for another school, because the pre-school teacher said there were too many Asians at this one, that you’d develop an Asian accent, that a new environment was the only way to cleanse the tongue.

Instead of a grandmother kicked in her face: a thousand orchids blooming from each swinging foot, the stems and petals forming a fragrant facemask wrapped around every face - hers, and yours.

I wish I knew Miss Saigon, / knew her through my parents’ eyes, / before the worry lines crowded their vision, / before her name became another word for loss.