KUMQUATS
ANONYMOUS
My grandmother brings
kumquats in a red strainer
each the size of her thumbs.
I am small and they fit
into where my baby
teeth have already fallen
out. They are bitter and I twist
my face. She nods
because she knows the acrid
taste like forced labor
of long-way-from-home. They roll,
ghosts in the bowl, straining for me to know them.
My family comes here as woodchips.
The axe strikes the trunk & particles
as collateral damage fly & roll.
Mao & Kuomintang, Cultural Revolution:
struck, split, scattered.
Hainan to Guangzhou to Hong Kong
to New York to San Francisco to San Jose.
My grandmother brings
kumquats and I pocket them
because I like the feeling
of having. They slowly split,
shriveling, singeing the fabric
with pressed-out juice,
staining my pants
orange like Yellow River.
I have four grandparents
on my mother’s side.
When I am young I tell their difference
using the sun and the moon.
Sun grandparents don’t want much
to do with us, angry that my mother married
a white man. Sometimes
Moon grandmother takes me
to her garden with her clippers
and passes me plucked flowers,
look, the warm black eye
from the Sun 15 years ago,
look, your uncle and his cocaine,
look, your mother’s temper.
My grandmother brings
kumquats and I devour them
by handfuls. They scrape
my lips as if I’m kissing them
zao an before I digest them
like grenades, before they explode
like knowing the diaspora
and broken family roam
hand in hand.
kumquats in a red strainer
each the size of her thumbs.
I am small and they fit
into where my baby
teeth have already fallen
out. They are bitter and I twist
my face. She nods
because she knows the acrid
taste like forced labor
of long-way-from-home. They roll,
ghosts in the bowl, straining for me to know them.
My family comes here as woodchips.
The axe strikes the trunk & particles
as collateral damage fly & roll.
Mao & Kuomintang, Cultural Revolution:
struck, split, scattered.
Hainan to Guangzhou to Hong Kong
to New York to San Francisco to San Jose.
My grandmother brings
kumquats and I pocket them
because I like the feeling
of having. They slowly split,
shriveling, singeing the fabric
with pressed-out juice,
staining my pants
orange like Yellow River.
I have four grandparents
on my mother’s side.
When I am young I tell their difference
using the sun and the moon.
Sun grandparents don’t want much
to do with us, angry that my mother married
a white man. Sometimes
Moon grandmother takes me
to her garden with her clippers
and passes me plucked flowers,
look, the warm black eye
from the Sun 15 years ago,
look, your uncle and his cocaine,
look, your mother’s temper.
My grandmother brings
kumquats and I devour them
by handfuls. They scrape
my lips as if I’m kissing them
zao an before I digest them
like grenades, before they explode
like knowing the diaspora
and broken family roam
hand in hand.
ELISABETH SIEGEL is a freshman at Yale College. She is a writer, designer and photographer. She is the Art Director & sole designer of sinθ (Sine Theta) Magazine, and she is on the editorial staff for the Yale Review of International Studies. In the past she was Editor-in-Chief of her high school's newspaper, the Winged Post, and literary magazine, HELM. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in 3Elements Review, Canvas Literary Journal, Textploit, and others. She usually loses arguments with her cat.
