watterson

林海韵

If I could capture my mother's tone
when I tell her about pursuing poetry.
"Since when do you write poetry?"
My poems have been vampiric, and I think
if I were to brandish these words
into the sunlight, they'd crumble to dust
and whisper away.

妈妈,
is it really so hard to imagine me as a poet?
When I was five you showed your sister-in-law
that poem I wrote about the flowers. You have
thumbed through the endless description
in my tired novels. And you have named me
海韵: rhythm of the sea.

This makes me the soft panting of waves
or the dark grey crescendo of tropic storms.
I am a song without a refrain. Humid sea salt
and temperamental tides. With the one-up
creative naming culture of China, you have steeped
me in a paradoxical brew. I am named
for poetry, and I will stamp my name
across every poem I write, for you.   

---
apr "14," 2017
written under a pseudonym