Grandmother

There are no direct flights
from Beijing to
Wisconsin.
At first, a patchwork jaunt
brings my grandmother
to me.
And I wonder what she thought
America would be like, then.

A conduit like this,
has always been fissured,
between us, space and time
sometimes spanned
tongues and years
and it was always
her half-a-day that lived
ahead of mine.

But when she still lived with us
at home, my grandmother’s slippers
were padded percussion.
The CCTV reads
chopped announcements –
the only midday voices
in her mother language.

In the kitchen,
scallions sliced,
longevity noodles hand-pulled,
tea leaves soaking up hot water
until they are fat with flavor –
the mailman comes,
the mailman goes.
Is this what it means to live in America?

If so, let the manicured rhythms
of small-town suburbia
play on –
My grandmother concocts
the slurry of pork and chives,
tucks them into miniature…