Exhibition by Esther Kim
If only museums fit into paper boxes.
I’d store each piece of you
in my bedroom, a diorama
holding half a century.
i. My fingers trace
a childhood I never knew.
Years ago, as you tucked me
and Daniel into bed, we’d ask
for stories. While other homes
unraveled the coiled narratives
of fathers, we never heard
yours. Instead, a fairytale
or a prayer. I picture the boy
hunched over a desk,
pencil in hand, and laugh.
ii. [Now, you hunch over
a wall, your naked back
to your father’s club.]
Last night, mother ripped
a clothes hanger off the floor
and pulled her arm back—
you held her arm, and the moon
shattered across the floor.
iii. America lies
in the middle of the diorama.
Decrepit America, sugared-over
America. The underside-
of-a-dream America. Eleven-
people-puzzle-pieced-into-a-car
America. [You hold the American flag
out the car window. In the market, too.
Browned and bruised peaches. You buy
one and bite. The juices trickle off
into an innocent smile.]
iv. Mother tells me about her
because you won’t. You’re
like your grandmother, she says.
If only you had met her—
two oceans
bearing the remnants
of her life—her sorrows, secrets,
hatreds, hopes—you stare
at the mug in your hand—the smell
of turmeric drifting upward— you know
turmeric prevents cancer? Yeah, it does.
