Town (or) Babel: Poem from the Editor
My body originates from a country where power is mediated through words,
A language with its body still dividing to mend its division.
Where saying “I am” is nothing short of an incantation.
I am a person where words fail often.
Whole sentences collapse into words broken across the lines of poetry.
So I’ll speak in the language most true to me — the language of story.
On the first day I spent alone in Cambridge,
Clothes partially packed away or stuffed in my suitcase
I flew forward walking in Central Square.
I had lost my balance, placing my feet in-between clashing brick,
And propelled myself staggering for a few steps,
Until I came crashing down on my rented books.
Coming from suburbia, I tried to master the urban gait, the
Steel-faced impressions of Bostonians unbothered by life and
Busy surroundings, comforted by the hurricane
Around them. I tried to mimic the Boston-native
Insincerity, but like so many things that week,
I found myself sprawled over the city, scrambling to
stand upright, the city, the people, and the
Sun overhead passing me by.
Before I had gone to school in Cambridge,
I never appreciated the harmony of discordance.
I’ve grown accustomed to the pursed lip smiles of suburbia and the
Overwhelming silence: the sound of birds and trees and
words not meant for me. I’ve begun to appreciate the harmony of
language, of people Whose voices carry sounds with mouths that move
and trace Delicate shapes unfamiliar to me.
Today I walked through the city of Cambridge and sprang forward,
hearing a Chinese woman speak Mandarin with an accent from South Boston.
A child as young as three held the
Hem of his mother’s long black
Skirt and asked a man for the way home, believing the native would understand.
People scattered at the Town of Babel decided to build across
instead of to the Heavens, into homes for mothers to softly
braid the hair of their tender-headed daughters.
Every day I walk on the brick-lined roads of Cambridge and fly
Forward on the brick but I never believe the brick should not exist.
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