Poem
Fortune Cookie No Fortune
by Hoa Nguyen •
not quite meandering chi luck
more like vermillion songbirds than orange
figure
maybe nine months postpartum
a Kodachrome print
in a ‘standard’ square-ish size
a size no longer a size
a floating island
She learned English from The Young
and the Restless a basement waterfall
lights up leaning
clay-colored flower pots we grew in
the way she sewed
language silent months
back then in Vietnam
‘a mixed child was as good as dead
remember the small wrapped cakes
they open to see a flower
‘wet eyelashes’