When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

by Chen Chen

Why did I never consider how different spring could smell, feel, elsewhere? First light, last scent, lost country. First & deepest severance that should have prepared me for all others.

Finally I’ve learned—all this time, trying to get from one useless chunk of land to another, when I should’ve stayed in the water. & we’re drinking tap water in your bright Brooklyn kitchen.

About all those moments of silence we’re supposed to take. Each year, more moments, less life, & perhaps the most monastic of monks are right to take vows of silence that last a decade.

Because I was reading today in the science section of the paper that passionate love lasts only a year, maybe two, if you’re lucky. Because I want to be extra, extra lucky.

I drive in the downpour, the road conjugated into uproar, by hearts I do not know.

But then I remember a significant number of Chinese immigrants live in Seattle & how I found several of the Pike Place fishmongers attractive when I visited, so I guess that poem’s about being gay & Chinese, too.

Eventually, a street appears where they can meet again. Or not. Do I love my mother? Do I have to forgive in order to love? Or do I have to love for forgiveness to even be possible? What do you think?

Let’s put our briefcases on our heads, in the sudden rain, & continue meeting as if we’ve just been given our names.