IN RHODE ISLAND

When I was younger, I thought about love

as though I owned it. Before she died, 

my great-aunt was my favourite. We talked 

about the cows outside the train windows while on vacation 

and they waved back. These days, I think 

about my past, unbridled; how the rolling hills outside the windows

whittled down into horizon will not stop; how any small meaning

has eluded me countless times, and hurt me since. I bruise 

easily, like fresh peaches dusted with morning 

dew, fleshy centers raw. I told my mother that it was only my first time 

alive and she said it was only hers too. Back in my mother’s motherland, 

I think of our final destination, yi lao, past the mooing cows 

that look longingly at the night train hurtling itself into the dawn; 

to the beach where the birds are beginning to sound 

their morning caws, white-feathered, breathing, and rising above

the warm sea. I am beginning to remember my beginnings now, 

beginning to love home. I only ask for enough time to make sand angels 

under the sundusk sky and the summer more than 

just a poem. Hold me close and I imagine you're still alive

because I love you. Sometimes, the world appears to be no longer 

mysterious to me anymore.