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poem written when my 婆婆 could still remember me
By Annina Zheng-Hardy

 

last year i asked my mother what she thinks 在粉碎


 

tbt stands for 记忆 “turn back time?” 

仍有许多人 and I 

didn’t 努力保留着


 

tell 仅存的碎片differently

 





 

when my mother was small and 

misbehaved her mother would tell her: you don’t deserve a good death


 

now i see 

my mother’s mother one half her

face at a time sometimes 之前一阵大风席卷世界而来


 

the video freezes i wait 

but the connection 之后一阵大风席卷


 

is fine she is just being 

still 

the 世界而去




 

      


 

more of her memories she loses 

the sweeter she becomes


 

                     eating peaches shirtless over the sink

juices and pulp running down my arms abundance

my mother and my mother's mother taught me to inherit 

i remember that 

there will be a last time 

i hear my mother laugh

感恩生活

my grandmother was already my mother’s mother and

long an orphan the first time she heard 

a plastic bag 


 

what would she have thought it sounded 

like that first time 

how would she describe to me 


 

the sound of it


 

when you

touch my face 

尽管有时感觉是满地鸡毛

and i  am already motherless

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