- When we first met he had nothing,
- naked as a brand-new lamb.
- Fresh dew shimmered on the wool of his back.
- Then, slowly, my small apartment filled
- with meaningful gimcrack of his past.
- And then, his parents’ baggage...
- First, his mother’s small leathers:
- prim, expensive, with a good name,
- filled to the brim, ready to explode.
- Took three friends to sit them closed.
- Then his father’s soft naugahyde:
- one special piece, a suit-bag hung
- over the doorjamb like a fresh carcass
- picked open by private vultures.
- And he and his sisters were the last
- worms to clean the ribs.
- I beg the question: who is host, who is guest?
- Who the eater, who the eaten?
- And in the depth of night,
- in the wake of our dreams,
- I reach out my arms to embrace what is left.
Marilyn Chin was born in Hong Kong and raised in Portland, Oregon. She has received many awards for her poetry, including a National Endowment Fellowship and a Stegner fellowship from Stanford University. Her novel, Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen, was published by Norton in 2009. Presently, she is a professor of creative writing at San Diego State University. “His Parents’ Baggage” is from her collection, The Phoenix Gone, the Terrace Empty, published by Milkweed editions: Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions 1994, 2009. Reprinted with permission from Milkweed Editions (milkweed.org). The author’s photograph is by Don Romero.