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		China Doll I am not a China doll. I am not a Geisha slut. I am not. Oriental. Exotic. Eastern. Fantasy. I’m not. I wear my mandarin collar, my frog closures for me. Because I can. Because I am. I wear my silk, my brocade. I am beautiful. Delicate. Okay, some stereotypes were me. Silent. Passive. Accommodating. Were me. Exotic. Were me. Father wanted to be Western. Wanted America. Though his long trip on the U.S.S. China wasn’t his choice, he made it his reality. Where is my father’s boat now? I want to get on it. I want to return to a place neither of us knows. But, I won’t leave in chaos. I won’t leave with questions unanswered. I won’t leave seduction spilling from my lips or yours. I won’t leave crying or screaming. I won’t leave not knowing where I’m going.
Black Beauty Blues Who knew Mother curled thick hair thin. Singed the lie Red hot metal over gas flames. Petroleum jelly a kitchen aid. The kitchen always sterile, always white
This Breast Belongs to Me Received in the fresh state and labeled left breast biopsy is an oval shaped segment of moderately firm 8 hours x 7 days x 52 weeks x # of hospitals = how much fear? breast tissue measuring 3.4 x 2.6 x 1cm. . . . The cut surfaces show moderately dense tan breast tissue. I can’t bathe, I can’t touch the possibility of death or survival Wrapped in gauze like a sanitary pad I smell shame my breasts nothing pathological examination and everything
Wintergreen Minnesota is not compatible to my growth, it is too cold. The Ice Age made it clear Magnolias, you can live here in SE China, here in Georgia. My ancestors opposed the heat. Civil wars and death--or just a robin traveling against the season-- tossed Black / tossed Chinese: Here I am, a Minnesota mutant. Snowflake. Like a magnolia, I am not white. It is only light passing through. Mama cooked tuna noodle casserole and Daddy ate it. Like a magnolia --whose sepals never fuse-- my life is disparate here a Black community, there an Asian community, everywhere white. He who chops down Magnolia trees is not a horticulturist historian, healer. I am almost ripe. Taste wintergreen. Soon, I will unzip myself shed pollen, Flower
Incarnation Father escaped mother with his chow mein and the flaming red-haired woman who served it to him. Mother remained starched white rice steaming in a black kettle. Jesus was at the Lutheran church across the street—I had access to him. this white light of mine; I'm gonna let it shine let it shine 'til Jesus comes; this white light of mine No one knew, Jesus and I weren't white each of us conceived--immaculately Hungry for sweet potato pie and string bean chop suey, I jumped the fence the neighborhood, the city. At a monastery in New York I confess to a priest, and twenty-seven poets that I am Black and they, the Cave Canem poets, respond, Amen. Sticky Rice, publishes my poem, "White Dragon" no one says: you're not Asian. I shave my head. Thank you Nikki Giovanni, Sapphire, Ndegeocello. I am a Buddhist nun, burn the chapters of my memoir one by one.

© Sherry Quan Lee.

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