Jujube

In the autumn of his life, my grandfather handed me
a hundred pages he had written
to remember the years gone away,
his book-loving village, his steadfast mother. 

At least, that is what my mom translated
for me, pinching the first page,
as we sat stuffy in the plane, five hours
down, eight to go. 

I touched the ink in each character,
recognizing every tenth one,
until I skipped to the end, looking for my name.
I found it, like a lantern. 

Now he tells me it is the winter,
shouts it through the phone screen,
camera trained on the white wisps above his eyes.
Eat well, I shout back. He doesn’t hear. 

I hold in my hands his spring and his summer,
grape trusses on the well, the lush sycamore.
I untangle his words more diligently this time,
his grandfather’s stubble, the jujube trees, 

the starling’s greeting, his flower-white dog,
his sister lost to illness, the bald man lost to war.

The Pharmacist’s Daughter 

The pharmacist’s daughter 
wants to build a home 
that reflects what she knows 
in her assured feet, accurate hands, 
small hills of gingered callouses.
She married first and gathered 
her town across oceans,
each traveling a different one. 
And by the time she placed
her fingers on the preacher’s palm, 
brown waves of hair over
borrowed white lace, 
she decided that this town 
was hers no longer and so 
she too traveled a waterless sea.
She welcomed her sisters into 
a rented apartment not quite
on the coast but close, 
hung up wood she carved
from forests not quite 
at her door but close, 
and cleared a patch of dirt, 
cupping the roots with a 
chipped hand shovel.

The pharmacist’s daughter pushes a seed 
deep into loamy soil with the tip of her nail 
and wishes this was hers; 
snips a cutting from a neighbor’s bloom 
and wishes this was hers; 
separates a cluster of pointed leaves, 
smears the dirt onto her thighs, 
feels it trail across her cheeks, her soles, 
and wishes this was hers so that she
can see what she has built.

The Dragons of Mississauga

I used to think they could see my future,
So I steadfastly refused to ask.
That isn’t hard, Left Red Dragon drawled,
When we already know your past. 

Maybe this was a bit of worship,
A complex ritual in my mind.
My laughter sacred or sacrilegious,
I never learned the dividing line. 

These are the memories that drown the others,
The Nine Dragons circling with every step.
On the day my grubby hands turned useful,
You’re still our child, Center Dragon said.

Author’s Biography

Cat S. Chen is an immigrant and non-profit immigration attorney in the United States. Her poems have appeared/are forthcoming in the Schuylkill Valley Journal, Eye to the Telescope, and Kissing Dynamite. She frequently puts into the world thoughts on immigrants’ rights and community lawyering and not so frequently puts into the world art.