Apology in the Margins of My History Textbook (Page 187)
you kissed my forehead and whispered
goodnight. i didn’t mean to wipe away
the traces of your affection
in front of you.
while your homemade egg rolls sizzled
in the microwave, i pretended
to sleep, nesting in the blanket still
smelling of your cigarettes. Stale, though
you brought warmth on a plate, egg rolls
so good they hunched my spine with pleasure.
you probably thought i was
simply perusing my history textbook
earlier that night, when you walked in
from work. but i was on pg. 187
for hours and hours, pretending to read
while your veined hands—gleaming
and hypertrophied—curled shadows
around my door frame, peeking in
to check on me.
though you probably wanted
a hey dad, even the slightest glimpse
of affection, i didn’t dare—i didn’t
know how. i have always wanted
hey, dad—to feel you twist
my hair perfectly into a bun, always
wanted love as warm as an egg roll
just before the timer sings.
our perfect squiggles
of wind-swept hair as we played tag
our glistening pairs
of sunglasses in June.
our dimpled Korean smiles—
I draw them in the margins
of page 187, realizing not one
is love. tonight, love is your tired hands
securing my locks into a thick bun,
five ties gathering each strand.
Sweetheart
another one of her notes
slides underneath my door—that
tender swoosh of stationary. though i know
what to expect: the dying leaves
teasing the honeyed kitchen, chirping cardinals
up to the windowsill’s eave. i hurry
to watch granny’s footprints sink
into the puddling shadows they leave. before
her rubber flip flops creak the crooked
staircase, i swing open my door, catch
each creamy strand of hair escaping
her braids, unraveling into anarchy. once
i open her note, her cursive radiates
another dream she feared speaking. The Lord will
fight for you. All you have to do is keep
still. Exodus 14:14—now, she is
downstairs blessing another
post-it note, her white rosary
clinking its plastic cross against
her writing fingertips, the bark
of her callouses roughens, weathered
as juniper. perhaps she’ll write
until she feels close to her granddaughter. until
she evaporates, drawn into
the doorbell’s open-mouth
scream, into the quiet lake of the tv
she abandoned episodes ago, living
room silently specking gray snow. shining
in the kitchen’s oil-slicked dim, she will
murmur as i re-read: Have
a good day. Then, she’ll say
what she cannot say—what she is
afraid to say—chirping up to my sill, teasing
the leaves from our Korean-
American fall. swee-swee-sweetheart.
Flights, Issue Fourteen, November 2024
Flight of the dragonfly 