Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by Amy Gong Liu

Self Portrait as a Summer

In June I became my mother / who became a ching-chong joke / whose eyes became plasma / whose daughter became regenerative / and in July I became a ching-chong joke / and my sister became the declaration / whose sisters became the machete / whose shoes were stolen under the last of light / and in August I became the burnt / and in August I lived in the nation / and the nation burnt its walls / leaving its pieces to wash by morning / so tomorrow I’ll become the morning / my blood will become theirs / and they will smell still / like the people they were before /

A Call with Family

on the phone,
my mother crushes

爱, a single bit of
jasmine between

her lips. my teeth
taste like glue. my

teeth taste like sun.
how do you say

uterus in tradition?
i have to ask the

black screen for
directions, but it

never returns
with permissions;

it never gives
me a kiss, or

returns on sunday
with the answers.

***

Photograph of Amy Gong Liu courtesy of Amy Gong Liu.