Two Poems by Caroline Mar (poetry, ’13)

Caroline Mar (poetry, ’13) has two poems, “Chinese Girl” and “Uniform,” in the recent Storyscape Journal. Here is an excerpt from “Chinese Girl”:

 

“Chinese Girl”

Bing bing. In the mouths of my Black students
my ethnicity is the sound of an elevator rising
past the floors of some anonymous downtown building
they will never set foot in. Our security guard,

also Black, uses Chinaman instead,
which I’m busily un-teaching
alongside the elevator’s ring.
My aunt was a teacher, too, called her boys

hak guai, as my grandmother called my mother
bok guai. Devils of two colors, but devils
nonetheless. And I was simply quai.
No Chinese family praises [….continue reading here]