Victoria Chang Poems

My father says the wrong things I say the wrong things
my father thinks he is 42 not 69 my father
was born in 1942 my father thinks his address
...

The woman in the automat must work must
have a boss must walk
to work two legs red with heat two legs
...

soak the glutinous rice, dates, wash bamboo leaves,
curl a leaf into a funnel,
...

While the man is away
telling his wife
about the red-corseted woman,
...

I once was a child am someone's child
not my mother's not my father's the boss
gave us special treatment treatment for something
special a lollipop or a sticker glitter from the
...

Before the pork buns steamed
in the pot, moisture in their
white folds, before the dried tofu
was trimmed into thin strips,
...

The boss is sitting at the desk the boss doesn't look
at her the boss is waiting for the black telephone
to ring she also waits for a ring from the boss he is
waiting for the files from her
...

Then we are in the back seat of a car kissing
not the light kind but one where our
hands are on each other's cheeks holding
each other's heads as if they will fall
...

They say my great uncle read foreign books
in a mud house in Nanking,
plowed his twenty acres, listened to
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He takes me up to the planetarium to look at stars and planets. The
more we zoom in, the more the planets look like houses burning.
There are reasons for those domes, those halves of things forever
...