she snaps

no that wasn’t me

on the ground

The Disappearing Wig

Clara’s new wig is gone

that’s all I know

that’s all anyone knows

I didn’t know anyone knew

about the new wig

Clara’s first wig

Clara’s only wig

but maybe it fell off

by accident

maybe that’s when someone took

it or maybe someone

knew about the wig and pulled

it off her head no one

tells me what happened no one

is crying I just hear my

mom’s angry Chinese to

my dad downstairs

the next day

Clara is wearing

a navy blue beret like the French

do or at least I think

they do because

I think the word is French I think

she should put on a striped shirt

walk a white poodle

and paint a moustache above her lip

people don’t make fun of the French

like they make fun of the Chinese

when the French speak

flowers come out

of their mouths

when the Chinese speak

it sounds like arrows

sometimes people pull

their eyes to the

corner to make them small and beady

what would it be like to see

the world through two

small slits

I should know

but I don’t

The Chins

Clara is my older sister

I’m Frances

we’re the Chins

the same as the one on a face

I know little about Clara

beyond the basics

I’m 11 and she’s 12 almost 13

we’re only 14 months apart

born in Detroit Michigan

I know my lips pout and go

out and down

hers stay in

I know I never

listen to my parents

she always does

I know that in

pictures her hands

are always together in the front

and she never smiles

sometimes

I can’t keep my laughter

tucked under my clothes

sometimes questions swirl

in my brain like a tornado

I know I’m supposed to be

a bug that tiptoes on my

hand that

I can see

but can’t

hear or feel

but I know

I’m not

Winters

We live where my parents’ jobs are

my mom is a high school

math teacher in Detroit

my dad is an engineer at

Ford Motor Company in Dearborn

they also own a Chinese restaurant

of course it’s called Dragon Inn

our state is shaped like a hand

people always hold their right hand up and

point to a spot to

show where they live

people sometimes lift their left hand first

then have to switch

Michigan is freckled with lakes but

we don’t ski we don’t ice-skate

we don’t go boating

my parents don’t

know how to do these

things we probably don’t have

money to do these things

for lao mei says my mom

for Americans

she says

too dangerous

about everything

she lets us eat at McDonald’s sometimes

and eat pizza because

my dad loves hamburgers

and she loves bread

in the wintertime

nothing moves

if you look closely

the smoke from all

the chimneys rises

one inch at a time

in the winter the snow