sow-shen-how fy-en nee-how
 
chit-chat in Chinese
spelled phonetically so you
can remember how to pronounce it
at the breakfast table when the college scholar
who is sleeping in your guest room
comes down the stairs
Some things he cannot understand
 
even when you enunciate slowly
so you speak them into his iPhone
and a she-voice translates
Once you said please only eat
at the dining table
 
and she said Please don’t put
the refrigerator on the dining table
and you both laughed in two languages
 
From then on you say sow-shen-how
when he comes down to breakfast
so he knows you’re glad he’s here
                        

I am not picturing you — college student 
on a bicycle in corduroys and windbreaker
getting cut off in the turning lane —
nor you on your brand-new Peugot 
accelerating through the two-way stop 
that my parents, ages 88 and 90, 
neglect to see. I just picture the lip 
 
of their SUV snagged by the bolt of a fire
hydrant, goldflame spirea flattened 
on the muddy terrace, or the bark of a hickory
scraped off that finally convinces my mother
(without whiplash nor nary a scratch) 
to take her foot off the pedal for good.
She cannot hear me speak into her ear 
 
via telephone; cannot read the captions 
on the TV anymore; says she is getting
glaucoma, has cataracts, has something 
too long and witchy to pronounce but swears 
she never does anything to warrant another 
driver to honk in warning but how would 
you know? I ask.
 
My father toddles with a cane, confesses relief,
after a concussion, that the doctor forbids
he drive, but with pride my mother claims 
his reflexes are working just fine.
I will not picture the ponytailed pedestrian
in a crosswalk — just angels gliding above 
their Subaru, belled sleeves sweeping three
seconds of spaciousness between them 
and everything else that moves.
                        

With the aim to counterbalance
the cloak of severed shame
in the years of unwed mothers
(fishing pokes at sleep-overs:
Did your real mama ditch you?;
the holidays with “sibs”
whom you look nothing like;
jokes about Cherokee mailmen
to explain your raven braids),
the Birth Certificate access,
Contact Preference forms,
Mutual Consent registries
 
although there is no antidote
to the unmentionable déjá vu
after you do locate Birth Mom,
that timid lady who 
so wanted to be found, it seemed.
Brought you around to family,
a picnic, Laven Beach - then skid
like a car on subzero snow
clean out of your reach
 
Gone her husband tells you
Hawaii for the winter
or was it to real daughters
raised on Everyday Island?
The holidays stretch week to week
in a cloud of pale silence
familiar as the cardigan
you pick up and tug back on.