瘸子，血液和蝴蝶。
   不知何故，种植了一株向日葵
在胡同里。它的脖子断了。
   也许记忆是所有的家
你得到。愤怒，你在哪里
   首先了解这个轴有多脆弱
一切都在倾斜。
   但要说你已经接受条款
与一个从未爱过你的城市
   可能会夸大一点。
你知道的只有一次
   一个现在坐落很多的步行，
空置的，老鼠在深草里
   躲避一天。
那一间公寓发生火灾
   早在76年就回到了街上
称为纵火收集索赔 - 
   最终什么都做不了
这座城市本身就是这样，离开了自己的阴影
   设备，大约十六年后。
一些人说，叛乱。暴动，
   其余的说。无论如何，火焰;
和你认识的家，灰烬。
   这不是实际的记忆，但是
你还记得它：
   达特森传下来，
然后被盗。剥光，恢复，
   并从螺栓上回来。
五月份开走。 1992年。
   那生命中剩下的东西很颤抖
在后视镜 - 世界着火的时候，
   和你的头一半 

In the invitation, I tell them for the seventeenth time 
(the fourth in writing), that I am gay. 

In the invitation, I include a picture of my boyfriend 
& write, You’ve met him two times. But this time, 

you will ask him things other than can you pass the
whatever. You will ask him 

about him. You will enjoy dinner. You will be 
enjoyable. Please RSVP. 

They RSVP. They come. 
They sit at the table & ask my boyfriend 

the first of the conversation starters I slip them
upon arrival: How is work going? 

I’m like the kid in Home Alone, orchestrating
every movement of a proper family, as if a pair  

of scary yet deeply incompetent burglars 
is watching from the outside.  

My boyfriend responds in his chipper way. 
I pass my father a bowl of fish ball soup—So comforting, 

isn’t it? My mother smiles her best 
Sitting with Her Son’s Boyfriend 

Who Is a Boy Smile. I smile my Hurray for Doing 
a Little Better Smile. 

Everyone eats soup. 
Then, my mother turns 

to me, whispers in Mandarin, Is he coming with you 
for Thanksgiving? My good friend is & she wouldn’t like 

this. I’m like the kid in Home Alone, pulling 
on the string that makes my cardboard mother 

more motherly, except she is 
not cardboard, she is 

already, exceedingly my mother. Waiting 
for my answer. 

While my father opens up 
a Boston Globe, when the invitation 

clearly stated: No security 
blankets. I’m like the kid 

in Home Alone, except the home 
is my apartment, & I’m much older, & not alone, 

& not the one who needs 
to learn, has to—Remind me 

what’s in that recipe again, my boyfriend says 
to my mother, as though they have always, easily 

talked. As though no one has told him 
many times, what a nonlinear slapstick meets 

slasher flick meets psychological 
pit he is now co-starring in. 

Remind me, he says 
to our family. 

白色洗滌
我的文化在出生時背叛了我，
在西海岸拋棄了我
並剝奪了我的遺產
玫瑰紅舌頭
  卡利太陽
輕輕地親吻我的處女皮膚，
把我包在白色的床單裡
稱她為她的一員。 
White Washed
My culture betrayed me at birth,
Abandoned me on the West Coast
And stripped the heritage from my
Rosy red tongue
  the Cali sun
Kissing my virgin skin, carefully, softly,
Wrapping me in her white bed sheets
Calling me one of her own.