Houseplant Custodies She’ll Have For the Next Eighteen

the bed of my Mother’s clivias

was where I rested

their cambered leaves bow to China lips

cerulean pirouetting the soil her pupils

gauzed in amber

she stroked my dark locks gingerly

circulating her perennial children, suspended

between their needs

  and my wishes

breastfed me Mandarin

dangling from her jade wrists 

she dealt her cards counterclockwise to face

the atlantic sea,

sun and daughter

eighteen years until they finally met

and the tongues they crossed

arched over huo gai,

                                   firewater i soak

she once tended to the petals

amid the emerald foliage

i was a fledgling quenched by

torrents of showers,

every wish granted

her calloused toes played mahjong

opposite the ivory my feet pedaled

on the grass velvet

she passed out tiles arranged, eighty-eight

—a game for two, a spectacle for three

i corrected the english she’d cement in mei guo

when sight underwhelmed

I espoused sound 

prancing on the contour of legato, the remnants

of earth preserved in my fingertips

fled promptly with sterile lectures

no punishment resists temptation

before i crawled, i gripped my soles

and lifted my torso above the chinaware

splintering my spine, 

                                              dusting ember

Mother told me to forego these fruits in mellow

that i must consume the da guniang 

plucked from the neighbors’ harvest

i soon was acquainted to her salads, 

 stems protruding from the broth

and though my calcite teeth resisted silver

the tableware was somehow welcoming

I was promised calves strong as granite,

a fusion of my shoulders and neck

anatomy perpendicular to the 

one she bore

Mother uprooted me from the armpits

and from underneath the bare

ceilings to her terrace, tall neighbors

extended their tentacles

i gently embraced each one

their coarse skin coincided with mine