Two Poems Mary
Soon Lee
Kitchen
Down
in the basement,
my parentsʼ kitchen
had
no pretensions,
no
chance at glamour.
In
mismatched cupboards
chipped
china crowded
against tupperware tubs,
but
we drank from Waterford crystal,
each
glass handmade, beautiful,
a
thing of art
that
might have stood with pride
in
a display cabinet,
but
which we used each meal.
The
first time I dropped a glass
I
thought my fatherʼs anger
would
break upon me
sharp
as the glass shards
at
my feet,
but
instead his calmness calmed me,
telling
me accidents happen
and
he would rather I broke a glass
than
that they went unused.
In
that kitchen,
I
ate the same breakfast
every
school day,
a
bacon and tomato sandwich
at
the old formica table,
the
same battered table
where
all our friends
sat
down for cups of tea
and
the company of my mother;
the
table at the center
of
the room at the center
of
my world.
Ask Me Now
Donʼt ask me afterwards
how it went:
ask
me now, a month before we go,
before
my feet are blistered,
my
luggage lost, my children weary,
the
pool closed for repairs.
Ask
me now and I will say:
these
will be the best days
of
the best summer of my life.
We
will build a sand kingdom
with
castles, palaces, towers,
bridges,
moats, villages, cannon,
airstrips,
rockets, moonbases,
and
when our hands are waterlogged
we
will sit beneath a striped parasol
eating
banana splits.
At
night we will play miniature golf,
roast
marshmallows, swim under the moon,
and
I will read the nineteen books
that
I have hoarded for this trip,
and
each book will make me almost as happy
as
the card games we play in our hotel room
on
the only rainy day,
a
day which we spend giggling
and
wearing silly clothes
and
painting our toenails.
Ask
me now.
Mary Soon Lee was
born and raised in London, but became a naturalized US citizen in 2003,
and has lived in Pittsburgh for the past twenty years. Her poem “Interregnum”
won the 2014 Rhysling Award for Best Long Poem
and may be read, along with other poems of hers, at http://www.thesignofthedragon.com
