i. mama wears her heritage as skin. / against the millpond

anointed with algae and clay, we weave our yellow pulse upon /

split belly, / gumming lotus / seeds / in the tadpole of our 

teeth. / mouthless, we hide / in the space between bones where

the earth / sung of mud and peels, fallen and starved, to fold

 

ii. into skin. / how this skin betrays us. / I remember thumbing

through fishpools slick with summer sweat, / when my grandmother

tucked / me into her fossil–– / where she was from / women grew 

from earth, grew limbs as a pickerel, bled grain / against the villagescape.

how their bodies danced of 

 

iii. warmth. / how their tongues, not a tongue, / starved mouthless in 

the palm of the earth; / how they deserved words. yet / we as 

foreigners are deserted in the wetlands, / and when we open our mouths

there is only koi / sodden of crustaceans, / silent as salt, / and when

 

iv. we pray for words they only unfurl of tongku and weight. / they

flow out of us, tongueless. / dear mama, teach me / to wear my

heritage as skin, / teach me to needle / my throat / through the 

pondwater. / lake-starved, we will bleed upstream, / fishing for

all the things

 

v. we yearned to be.