xiao xue

"IF I TELL YOU THIS, PLEASE ASK ME WHY"

i.

there’s a man selling

small pouches of lavender on

the corner &

he smiles crooked fences

unpainted

i remember you

when you were still just a girl

ii.

sunflowers melt under moonlight

dark faces

wide open spaces

mama’s fingers for years

smell of charred naan

& smoke

the kind that folded over

grandpa’s eyes

iii.

it’s okay mama

he didn’t want to see this anyways

there are tanks

in the square

& good soldiers don’t go home

& good comrades never leave

safe sons can no longer walk

& i still

wear sunflower dresses

iv.

when you say you want

to be home for me

i worry you do not understand

the stakes

you don’t realize

everything is tinted blue

here

the street light the curtains

your eyes

v.

so forgive me when

i cannot explain to you this

homegrown

smoke

depleting

chili powder & crushed cumin

baijiu & sharp grains

of sand in the sun

a land not ours

but mine

is burning

vi.

& i don’t remember but

ask me anyways

why

those men longing for home

doused themselves

in gasoline

struck a match

& ran

Xiao Xue is a poet who deliberated with herself for a solid thirty minutes (or twenty years) about where she can say she’s “from”, but can’t seem to decide. At the very beginning, it was Xinjiang, China. More recently, she lives in Kansas City, Missouri where a former shoe factory used to be, with a very sweet baker and a very old cat. There were many places in between—all of them were home at some point in time. Xiao Xue has been published in the Kiosk Magazine and hopes to be forthcoming somewhere someday soon.