(no subject)
mother wears a postage stamp over her heart to keep a memory of her father fresh in her mind
a faded black ink impression reads ROC over yellowing airmail sticker
her fingers are shiny metal plugs she places into a telephone switchboard
her voice crackling Cantonese, Hong Kong, May Gok, Sam Fan Cee
her son is glass and steel as his head touches the sky lost amidst fog and glimpses of blue
his ears hear 802.11G, his hands glued to a cell phone like a pet
veins of cable connections and ethernet wires wind their way up his legs
as he becomes a beacon of bluetooth power, a blue light blinking in his left ear
his pockets hold devices like armor as he steps onto a plane to Shanghai without a fear in his heart
grandmother sits on the couch remote in hand, scanning the three channels she knows by heart
her cane rests on the edge of her arm, which in its former life as a paddle had dipped itself into the yangtze river
her ears no longer hear the radio, the echo of communist and KMT voices have long faded away
and here she breathes an Olympic dream, once witness to far more fearsome things a square of students in heaven
speaks to her great grandchildren face to face laughing in the eyes of history.
a faded black ink impression reads ROC over yellowing airmail sticker
her fingers are shiny metal plugs she places into a telephone switchboard
her voice crackling Cantonese, Hong Kong, May Gok, Sam Fan Cee
her son is glass and steel as his head touches the sky lost amidst fog and glimpses of blue
his ears hear 802.11G, his hands glued to a cell phone like a pet
veins of cable connections and ethernet wires wind their way up his legs
as he becomes a beacon of bluetooth power, a blue light blinking in his left ear
his pockets hold devices like armor as he steps onto a plane to Shanghai without a fear in his heart
grandmother sits on the couch remote in hand, scanning the three channels she knows by heart
her cane rests on the edge of her arm, which in its former life as a paddle had dipped itself into the yangtze river
her ears no longer hear the radio, the echo of communist and KMT voices have long faded away
and here she breathes an Olympic dream, once witness to far more fearsome things a square of students in heaven
speaks to her great grandchildren face to face laughing in the eyes of history.