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"Lost Sister"In China, even the peasants named their first daughters Jade— the stone that in the far fields could moisten the dry season, could make men move mountains for the healing green of the inner hills glistening like slices of winter melon. And the daughters were grateful: They never left home. To move freely was a luxury stolen from them at birth. Instead, they gathered patience, learning to walk in shoes the size of teacups, without breaking— the arc of their movements as dormant as the rooted willow, as redundant as the farmyard hens. But they traveled far in surviving, learning to stretch the family rice, to quiet the demons, the noisy stomachs. There is a sister across the ocean, who relinquished her name, diluting jade green with the blue of the Pacific. Rising with a tide of locusts, she swarmed with others to inundate another shore. In America, there are many roads and women can stride along with men. But in another wilderness, the possibilities, the loneliness, can strangulate like jungle vines. The meager provisions and sentiments of once belonging— fermented roots, Mah-Jong tiles and firecrackers—set but a flimsy household in a forest of nightless cities. A giant snake rattles above, spewing black clouds into your kitchen. Dough-faced landlords slip in and out of your keyholes, making claims you don't understand, tapping into your communications systems of laundry lines and restaurant chains. You find you need China: your one fragile identification, a jade link handcuffed to your wrist. You remember your mother who walked for centuries, footless— and like her, you have left no footprints, but only because there is an ocean in between, the unremitting space of your rebellion. |