Ode for Baby Pandas, Hong Kong Mornings, and My Grandmother
The one English word my grandmother knows is beautiful—
Beautiful, like pandas knocking over buckets of leaves
in Sichuan, over and over again, and their nanny moves them
to a corner, their adoring fans waiting with cameras,
and if I won a million dollars, I’d fly across the ocean
in a heartbeat just to hug them, just to give them cardboard
to rip, just to see them trot along on their merry way,
ready to cause more destruction, ready to knock over
more buckets of leaves, and it’s beautiful, and speaking of cute,
I’d take a date with baby pandas over a date
with the celebrity dreamboat of my fantasies any day,
even if said date included a view of Tokyo Tower
and raw oysters and every caviar imaginable and the best lobster
in the world and a nice serving of uni and a little Cioppino
and pistachio gelato and some French fries with sweet ketchup
on the side, and Do you want to go out for a steak
later? I’d like it nice and rare, nice and rare, and that’s everything
I want, but I want the pandas more, and it’s beautiful
the way the panda expert on television declares that pandas
are beautiful because they remind us of our own children,
and I’m jealous of travel show hosts who get to cuddle them,
because I think about their black and white goodness,
like black and white cookies or Little Debbie Chocolate Cupcakes
with their oh so twee vanilla spirals, reminding me
of cute girls wearing cute blouses with black ribbons,
and I’m not pure enough to pull that off, but I appreciate
the effort, ladies—beautiful—and what about blackout cake
or white truffles or my favorite Hong Kong drink of all time,
the yuenyeung, the yin yang, the divine East Asian morning
concoction of three parts coffee and seven parts milk tea,
and it’s eight, not seven that’s the lucky number in Chinese
culture, but that’s beside the point, because this drink is
beautiful, beautiful with a Hong Kong breakfast of noodles
and ham in broth or what about condensed milk on toast,
a side of Asian sausage, or what about plain and simple
congee—what a beautiful morning, and oh, my grandmother’s
so beautiful, and it’s beautiful how beautiful is the only word
she knows in the English language, and I love how she loves
girls wearing double buns because they remind her of pandas
and I think it’s beautiful how the Scottish Fold next door
makes her smile like she’s a kid again, and she wants
to let him in, but I’m allergic, but oh that smile—beautiful,
like my first memory with her, making cookies in the shape
of camels, and if I won a million dollars,
I’d fly across the ocean, take my grandmother with me
to play with pandas in Sichuan, order her a bowl of noodles
with lots of beef and tripe, and oh, do you see those baby pandas
knocking over those buckets of leaves—beautiful.
—
This selection comes from Dorothy Chan’s full-length book, Revenge of the Asian Woman, available from Diode Editions. Purchase your copy here! Our curator for this selection is Danielle Hanson.
Dorothy Chan is the author of Attack of the Fiy-Foot Centerfold (Spork Press, 2018) and the chapbook Chinatown Sonnets (New Delta Review, 2017). She was a 2014 finalist for the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Academy of American Poets, e Cincinnati Review, e Common, Diode Poetry Journal, Quarterly West, and elsewhere. Chan is the Editor of e Southeast Review and Poetry Editor of Hobart.
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