I Wonder If

by Teresa Mei Chuc

I wonder if
my grandma
turns the color
of cherry blossoms
when she blushes
and how the wide
sleeves of her kimono
are wings.
I wonder how her
dark hair
curves in a bun,
how two long thin needles
cross and keep it in place,
and a tsubaki,
camellia red as her lips,
blooms in the blackest
ocean.
I am picturing her
though I have never
seen her, as she wraps
an obi around her waist
how she takes the sash
of wind in her hand
so delicately,
and I am listening to
the sound of getas,
elevated wooden
sandals, as she walks
down the dark
night street

Teresa Mei Chuc was born in Saigon, Vietnam and immigrated to the U.S. under political asylum with her mother and brother shortly after the Vietnam War while her father remained in a Vietcong “reeducation” camp for nine years. Her poetry appears in journals such as EarthSpeak Magazine, Hypothetical Review, Kyoto Journal, The Prose-Poem Project, The National Poetry Review, Rattle, Verse Daily and in anthologies such as New Poets of the American West (Many Voices Press, 2010), With Our Eyes Open: Poems of the New American Century (West End Press, 2014), and Mo’ Joe (Beatlick Press, 2014). Red Thread is her first full-length collection of poetry.