Phone rings
A sudden mother tone
asks, What are you eating?
How are you getting around?
Warns me to lock all the locks on the door
My voice plays over
and over –
half-truths echoing fragmented
Vietnamese, covering up my isolation,
self inflicted asylum
I don’t tell her that the locks
have already been locked
The click, click, scrape of chain to groove –
I don’t tell her about my fear
I don't tell her that I can't
lock out
the sirens, the smut, the smog, paranoia
of taxicabs – the clomping of
strangers up five flights of stairs,
the tortured baby crying, stench
of yeast from the bagel shop below,
extremes of heat and fall –
the unexpected rain
I don’t tell her that suddenly,
hearing the weariness of her voice,
I can still feel her flannel nightgown
wet with my tears, that the smell
of Ponds cold cream always makes
me sad – how I long to wrap my
aching arms around her warm belly
Instead I say, I'm fine, eating
co’m,
taking subway . . .
I don't tell her that today I wept
over a bowl of phô
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