I am the type to go to bed with my feet dirty
A man calling from a balcony is not to be trusted
In 1988, the nation sings a song I can’t understand but I sing it because everyone looks at
me like a thief and no one likes a thief
Algae gathers in plastic cups along the Jersey Shore
The dull prongs of a fork still count as a weapon
I gather plastic cups along the shore and shake them out to use for tea, juice, a home for
my toothbrush
The Pledge of Allegiance is a building ledge, an alleged crime, a leg crossed over another
leg, a plea gone askew, a glance shared in a room with someone else who looks like you
Hundreds of toxic wild boars are roaming across northern Japan and it would be a mistake
to identify with them
In 1960, my grandmother holds no knife in no tall wheat
When washing her feet, my grandmother tells me she spent decades without shoes,
wonders if the mud misses her
I am a good daughter and I can repeat this indefinitely without taking a breath
Often, I call out to myself just to hear an echo, to hear something moving in the walls like a
healthy family of rats
My mother has been told, repeatedly: “You can’t walk here”
Here is a white stone, a white fence, a white sea gull, a white jug of milk, a white candle, a
white duvet, a white patio, a white bar of soap to wash your mouth out
Sometimes I dream in Cantonese and I have no idea what is being said
You grow to love what you create, pouring out of your mouth
In 1988, my father sees his reflection in the rearview mirror and identifies with the blood
moon lighting his way to Atlantic City
From a balcony, a man yells at me: “You need some white dick” and I turn into a boar
我在广东做梦
My father disappears for weeks and my mother keeps weeding the garden, pulling
cigarettes from the splintering tomatoes I will devour
I study asymptotes for months and dream in curves—almost but never touching
My mother writes in her English diary for night school: “I hate him I hate him I hate him I
hate him I” and her ESL teacher only gives her a check, so I give her a check plus
To be a good daughter means to carry everything with you at all times, the luggage of the
past lifted to the mouth
When we look at each other, my mother laughs like an overripe tomato on a windowsill
In 1989, I spent months assembling a puzzle map of the United States of America and the
teacher said, “Good job, Jane” and then louder and slower like a drowning sloth:
“Gooooood Jahhhhhhb, Jane” and I did not touch a single piece
Bloody drunk and a blood moon, my father fights with another gambler and jabs at his
arm with a dull fork and they both laugh celestially
你是一只美丽的野猪
During elementary school, I did not say a single word, not even when called on, and thus
the teachers and administrators decided I could not speak English because they looked at
me
Mao Zedong explains math: “In geometry, I just drew a picture of an egg—that was
enough geometry for me”
My grandfather was jailed by the Red Army sometime between 1966 and 1976 and my
mother says: “I saw him cry when I tried to visit. He wanted to eat the bao I made for him”
Algae gathers, gleaming like a jewel, on the head of my 5th-grade betta fish
Counterrevolutionaries during the Cultural Revolution are likened to “finding a bone
inside an egg”
I was born, healthy, in the year of the rat
The man on the balcony invests in a foldable set of two chairs and one table in egg-
shell-white—mold resistant, perfect for outdoor use
你不敢看我
I was ten when I willed a rock to fall off a ledge, just by staring at it long enough
from How to Not Be Afraid of EverythingFind more by Jane Wong at the library
Copyright © 2021 Jane Wong
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.