Asian Parents Don’t Say “I Love You”

by Sebastian Snow

cover photo by Joy Xing

but what means I love you more than I will be here to cook dinner?

what means more than being afraid to say “thank you”

in your grandmother’s tongue

and saying it anyway?

what means more than your grandmother’s tongue?

somebody has to cradle it,

to burn it,

to let it live through fire wounds?

you’ll be there, because it’s the only way you know how to say anything

you’ll be the burden of letting go

where you came from; where you’ll go

you were made from a woman born

between two existences

so she put home inside you

you never stop being a child

so beautiful as your mother presses you

against her baked brown skin

you swear the sun is in there