Why are all my words dressed like immigrants?
I ask the little girl trapped in a photograph.
Plaid red pants. Two sizes too small for her.
Seagulls fleeing from a burnt sienna sky.
Grandpa’s hat drooped over her slanted eyes.
Where are you? I ask the older woman,
missing from all the other photographs
the question takes refuge as I stand
in my mother’s bathroom doorway.
She smiles in the mirror at me,
brushing her teeth
soft morning chirp
from the open window, white curtains sway
like a sundress, faucet water rushes, she spits.
What is it? She asks.
Nothing.
Joh-Jung Writes 