When I Look In the Mirror

By Erika Yip for Liminal FW21

Generations of myself 

pool into my cheeks, 

bled-out versions of identity 

I let dry into dense clots, 

clots of Chinese plums and persimmons 

mother used to make sweet tea, tea

I poured out so I would not smell like

unwashed kitchen rags, or sound like 

the Cantonese radio static that sliced

through floor tiles, or be reminded that

my face is shaped like miniature round clocks 

father scattered across our home for good feng shui. 

In five years my childhood home will 

suffocate in cellophane, faceless cushions

pressed against plastic, wooden chairs

contorted into lifeless limbs 

no one will remember. 

There is a difference between 

cleaving and to cleave: 

cleaving to culture, 

to cleave from culture.