Two Poems
by Tiffany Hsieh
Asian Man Through the Ages
Asian Man, 25, throws out the guy at second the same way he chucks the phone book down and pumps his chest when Asian Woman says yes to bubble tea. On Saturdays, Asian Man, 35, makes a batch of hand rolls the same way he wraps a diaper around the baby while Asian Woman washes her hair. Inspired by truck commercials featuring men with tools, Asian Man, 45, tackles a DIY home renovation project the same way he shakes his legs in his BMW waiting for the light to change. Asian Man, 55, has his lumbar spine adjusted once a week the same way he has an ejaculation inside Asian Woman roughly every seven days. This shouldn’t happen anymore, but every once in a while, Asian Man, 65, loses his zen the same way he tells the Jehovah’s Witnesses he is a Buddhist. Whenever there is someone else other than Asian Woman to talk to, Asian Man, 75, rehashes the story about being shortchanged three cents at the store the same way he shoos a fly away. Asian Man, 85, makes a scene in a hospital gown the same way he remembers Asian Woman making a scene in a hospital gown. Asked what he wishes for his birthday, Asian Man, 95, bares what is left of his oolong-stained teeth the same way he tries telling everybody to leave him the fuck alone.
From Hollywood
I watched a movie star from Hollywood pick her nose with her thumb. The craft show was pretty dead before she came into our booth. She was kneeling down to check out the bowls on the bottom shelf and that was when her hand went up and the thumb went in for a hook. She was wearing a pair of those face-covering sunglasses but her dimples gave her away. I kept waiting for her to look over so I could make eye contact with her sunglasses and say something about our pottery, how Ba and Ma made them by hand in our home studio. While I was waiting, I kept going back and forth between saying hello and hi when she looked over. Then she got up and left. I missed what she did with the booger, if she got it. Then I told Ba that a movie star from Hollywood was just in our booth. He was taking a break in the back with his oolong and asked who’s that and did she buy anything.
Tiffany Hsieh was born in Taiwan and moved to Canada at the age of fourteen. Her fiction and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Juked, The Malahat Review, Passages North, Poet Lore, Room, Salamander, The Shanghai Literary Review, Sonora Review, and others. She lives in southern Ontario.
