KLANG, 2003 by Lyn Li Che

Sundays were always the green

of aquarium glass, the smell

of waxed duck pinching the house.

The television splintering 

the room like the dry season;

outside, dogs’ perpetual barking.

My parents translating, not that

I needed words to understand

the empty wine bottles stashed 

under the bed, the sediment reddening

my grandfather’s lips. In the centre,

my grandmother muddied, jangling

like a mantra, my uncles plastic Buddhas

playing cards in the back room. 

Aunties gossiping in their mother-tongue,

as my cousins beam, collect praise

like angpao packets. And me:

a glass held too tightly in a fist,

praying not to break at everyone’s feet.

Lyn Li Che was born in Malaysia. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Crazyhorse, Michigan Quarterly Review, Indiana Review, Gulf Coast, Waxwing, Sixth Finch, PANK, Passages North, Tupelo Quarterly, BOAAT, and others. A 2021 Kundiman Mentorship Lab Fellow, she currently lives in New York City, where she works in tech product development.

4 July 2022