Broken Bonds

For nine months,
she labored
to rid that body from her life.
She reached down,
touched the wet soul
for the first time - with blood
stained hands, cut the cord
of the final connection.
In the morning news she wrapped
the baby abandoned
on the river bank.

***

Back in 1954
an infant boy was sold
on the black market
for two hundred and fifty bucks.
He grew up without an identity,
longing to know his mother,
her favorite color, and if
she ever thought of him
in forty years.

***

Su Lin existed on the streets
of San Francisco
until she discovered roots
leading back to China.
In Shanghai she traced
the truth to her birth mother;
a woman who could not drown
her tears, or Su Lin
in the depth of the Yellow River.
To prove her first born
daughter had worth
she placed her in basket
on the doorstep of a fine house;
determined a girl would survive.

***

In my house I lived
with the shadow of a ghost
who never died, framed on the wall
his face was my familar
in a darker shade of pale; a brother
I only knew by name.

His birthdate marked the onset
of winter and my mother’s sadness.
Long nights she sat with a vision
before he vainished in legal documents
as he turned five.

TIME OUT

RETURN