I was a sticky-mouthed,
sticky-fingered four year old, watching
your face,
as she pointed at the rice bowl,
Telling you to eat.
Cold bare china, cold bare rice, cold strip of
fish, leftover,
laid across the dome of white,
the color of
your face.
The color of mourning cloths.
Doe eyes, a girlish petulant mouth
Freckles and a home perm –
My mother.
And my America.
Your China teemed with the warmth
of bodies and giddy white wine
A mingling of chopsticks
and fingers clasped in communion.

In China, you danced in dirndls,
laughed as you clinked glasses
wore your youth around
your neck
in trailing silk.
Dignity balanced on your chin,
as you looked, proud, up and out.  

Your face turned down
when your feet touched
America.  
Your tears slid onto the floors
you mopped. Exile.

The click and drawl
of your dialect sounded
Nervous, lost
here.  In this land of indifferent vastness.

But when she pointed
to cold bare china, a defilement
to your homeland, you looked up
into her eyes.
You would not eat the food
Of dogs and beggars.

We left.
You took my sticky small hands
and placed in them
the dignity
that tumbled from your chin.