Taste
(2004-12-31 20:09:58)
下一個
My stomach still
rumbles
at the same hours
three times a day
my head spinning
for my mother’s menu--
Like now
coming home from class
trying to get rid of
Nietzsche
on a shrinking belly.
What matters
we cannot deny:
Chi, He, La, Sa--
eat, drink, shit and piss,
the ancient philosophy
mixed with rock n’ roll
playing in the park.
My mother was
a lathe operator
in a factory
that employed ten-
thousand people
in Tanggu.
She has the strongest hands
almost ruined by the faucet
water in the winter
at an outdoor fountain
where the mothers did
the family’s laundry.
I’m holding the rice bowl
made by Tom, a humble
ceramic artist
who seems to know the color
of a Chinese mother’s
skin, and I see
my mother again:
Coming home
on a bicycle
in her uniform
to bring us lunch--
the road was always dusty
in Tanggu
My brother and I would wait
for her
like two starving sparrows
after school.
Usually there were two
dishes in two aluminum containers
wrapped in white-and-blue
hand towels
& steamy rice in another.
She watched us eat
till the last bite
then like she did everyday
before returning to work
cautioned me--the older one,
to lock the door carefully.
I taste now
the being
of my mother again
and the dusty road
of Tanggu.
__LTG