All my mother wanted as a little girl was a pair
of red stockings, her childish version of elegance,
the way scarlet would pop against her clothes,
and I think about this when she sends me a package
of fishnets, because I like things a little sexpot,
a little oh honey, it’s not what I did, but what
I can do to you tonight, and how my mother wanted red
so bad it gave her a fever, because she grew up
with three siblings in a closet-sized Hong Kong apartment,
my grandmother running the pajama stand downstairs,
my grandfather working in HR, bringing life-size dolls
with glass eyes from Europe and watches from Sweden,
but never anything a girl wanted, and I see this image of my mother
at fifteen at the dinner table: she and her sisters rush
through Grandfather’s noodles so they can run downstairs
to the candy store before closing time, and let’s face it:
my grandfather’s never been the best cook, and my mother’s stuffing
her face with vegetables when my father walks in—
he’s twenty-nine, a friend of my grandparents and that weird age gap
between being too young to be their friends and too old
to date my mom, but I know the way she’s looking at him,
the movie star of her apartment, like this could really be
something, but boy bye, I need to buy my chocolates first
before closing time, and we’ll have a year to get together.
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