DISLOCATED
PARISA THEPMANKORN
My mother rose from the ground
in this country, tarnished,
mouth filled with dirt. My father says,
smile, it’s America. Your daughters
are climbing picket fences & grocery carts.
It’s like playing songs on the stereo,
bright blue and thrumming,
each beat pulsing along like a bullet,
ricocheting through skin–
Sinatra shimmering on our tongues,
mouths twisted in sweet talk & red apples.
We pick fresh ones from the orchard every week,
new harvests, daybreak–
hello, sweetness. Sugar sinking out of my teeth
oozing in the golden light.
But my mother tastes each fruit
in grayscale,
the sound of each bite as a lowered octave
open gunfire, a body emptied out–
hello, coarseness. Hello, all these things
that seem right but are wrong, are twisted, are full
of thorns that prick and bruise,
are full of sugar that doesn’t taste right, not even
in the light, not even in the same sun.
There are no roads that lead back to Bangkok.
My mother empties herself into
a wok, her body soft against the cast iron,
gasping at the heat, praying
to a different god. She shudders into the metal,
full of fire and fists, & emerges
charred, branded in a terrible way,
feet that only take her north, feet that love this new ground
& have forgotten the language of Singha & night markets,
feet that have split & softened &
hear the neighbors calling us over
to the other side of the street.
in this country, tarnished,
mouth filled with dirt. My father says,
smile, it’s America. Your daughters
are climbing picket fences & grocery carts.
It’s like playing songs on the stereo,
bright blue and thrumming,
each beat pulsing along like a bullet,
ricocheting through skin–
Sinatra shimmering on our tongues,
mouths twisted in sweet talk & red apples.
We pick fresh ones from the orchard every week,
new harvests, daybreak–
hello, sweetness. Sugar sinking out of my teeth
oozing in the golden light.
But my mother tastes each fruit
in grayscale,
the sound of each bite as a lowered octave
open gunfire, a body emptied out–
hello, coarseness. Hello, all these things
that seem right but are wrong, are twisted, are full
of thorns that prick and bruise,
are full of sugar that doesn’t taste right, not even
in the light, not even in the same sun.
There are no roads that lead back to Bangkok.
My mother empties herself into
a wok, her body soft against the cast iron,
gasping at the heat, praying
to a different god. She shudders into the metal,
full of fire and fists, & emerges
charred, branded in a terrible way,
feet that only take her north, feet that love this new ground
& have forgotten the language of Singha & night markets,
feet that have split & softened &
hear the neighbors calling us over
to the other side of the street.
PARISA THEPMANKORN resides in a small town in New Jersey. Her work has been published in Hobart, Words Dance, and The Best Teen Writing of 2016, among others. She currently attends Brown University and serves as a poetry reader for The Adroit Journal.
