Beneath the open casket, rose-ridden.
Her skin a paper crane. And would she break?
Or fold like paper tears? (lately written)
Too late now to savor the last mooncake.
Red envelopes filled with the last of the bills.
The nauseating incense, and her skin
so thin you can see the land of green hills,
of Home. The rivers running through her kin.
Through me. But who am I to share her blood,
when I hated to sing her children’s songs,
in English, so that she could learn our tongue.
When I was the foreigner all along.
Embarrassed of the last Sunday I spent
too embarrassed to sing the alphabet.