Human Conditioning
She hates the noise,
the rumble, the clatter of Bic pens
as they shift along the table.
The shriek of landing gears pierces
every solemn air
but she doesn’t leave, not for years
or decades.
She escaped the war,
the Japanese and their flying zeroes,
red and round like the sun.
She only ever heard
the 1 note song of bombs,
only saw the holes left by guns.
Her middle name is Luck
spoken from a Shanghai tongue.
Instead of lunch,
she spends her time
toeing the line
between US soil
and the international zone.
Her hands, wrinkled and scored,
still hold letters to be sorted
but whenever familiar faces
pass through opened plane doors
she fights the urge to pass them on
like notes baked in lotus seed paste
shaped to be silver and round
like the moon.
She forgets freedom
doesn’t have to be fought for
so soon anymore.
These new immigrants
can wait.
They can watch MTV,
eat donuts crusted in sugar,
gain some weight.
They can even move away
to Ohio, Oregon.
They’re not chained
to the gates of JFK,
no matter what she thinks.
She raised 2 children
to study computer science.
When her last studied English
she said, this isn’t a coded language.
It doesn’t need to be.
We can tell stories freely.
Listen.
