A Part, Yet Apart Poem by Chen-ou Liu

A Tanka Prose

''The letter 'I' is pronounced with a large flap of the tongue. In contrast, the best way to pronounce 'r' is to move your tongue as little as possible when making the sound, ' my eager ESL tutor tells me from across the table. After several attempts at 'alive and arrive, ' 'flee and free.' and 'blight and bright, ' I recognize a helpless look on her face. She is twenty years younger than I with dyed blonde hair. Then, in a low voice, she says, 'Sometimes, I'm jealous of you. You speak and act like you know who you are. Hovering between two worlds, I feel pressured to be loyal to the old one while living in the new, approved of on either side of my hyphenated identity: Chinese-Canadian.'

she murmurs,
'I'm homesick at home...'
I respond
in halting English
'the past is my home'