HEATHER QIN
To the Mother Crying at the Airport Terminal
After Kim Addonizio
Remember the first snow in your hometown, the time you
waded waist-deep in winter and opened all the windows?
The first time you shivered during supper, the wet clatter
of your wrist echoed against the table. Remember as if your life
depends on it. Remember it like first blood, like first kiss.
Forget fortune, gunfire, mouth oiled in another man’s spit,
the blistered terrain of your knuckles unzipping in the sun.
Hold hands with your brother through the prison bars. Don’t
answer your phone. Air out your grief as laundry. Trust me,
no one was born knowing anything about disaster. Open
the window. Listen: children singing to the blind man outside,
choreographing a play in the cellar of his eye. Forget the time
you darkened yourself into the backseat of the van, paid for your
survival in counterfeit bills. On the beach you bled into seawater
as kelp forests curtained your ankles, cut your hair with bandage
scissors and tossed it into the waves like ashes. This you can
remember without choking: your daughter riding a bike, all the
way down the sidewalk for the first time. Curiosity is her toil. After
she falls asleep, you’ll get tired of dressing your grief. Tomorrow
is not a salvation but a piece of a body you’ll forget. Remember
& remember it again. You’ll get there too—second snow whipping
into your lungs, sand fleeing your palms, laughing until you
lose your voice. You do not have to be strong.
Previously published in Diode Poetry Journal
Heather Qin (she/her) is from New Jersey. A Best of the Net Nominee, her work has been recognized by the New York Times, Narrative, and Hollins University, and can be found or forthcoming in Sine Theta Magazine, Whale Road Review, and Diode, among others. Besides writing, Heather loves classical music, reading, and watching soccer games.