My poem is inspired by my grandmother Eugenia, who taught me “Girls do not chew gum” and “Ay, no me digas eso.”
My favorite photograph
taken in Tío Jose and Tía Zonia’s supermercado
laminates the two of us in time
I sit in the background on plastic crates in the freezer aisle
adolescent smile untouched
before braces reigned in my crooked canine
straight bangs bluntly chopped
above my eyes
thanks to my mother’s fearless snipping
I only saw in my grandmother
poise and tenacidad
born out of untethering eight children
into this world
My grandmother’s close-up reveals
silvery gray hair
perfectly coiffed after each perm
translucent lavender Dior glasses that sharpened
her taste for European-made fabrics and paperback romance novels
full cheeks freckled
from the Campoy sun
opened mouth elongating “¡NO!”
she warns the photographer not to take the photo
she hated being the center of attention
and she hated when she wasn’t
She is a Chinese Peruvian Jane Austen novel
waiting for me to publish her
so you can read between the lines
Cantonese-Spanish subtext buried under each generation
And what I don’t remember
I will imagine her back into existence
where she will dictate to me
her own epilogue
as
a poem