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Sobriqu(i)ets
On the corner of 12th and Market, a man says
Nihao, China and I’m in love,
I just don’t know it yet. One day, I’ll love
the slant of my eyes, their slashing stare.
I’ll love the ching-chong clamour of the old country
and my grandfather’s names: both the one
he was given and the one taken away
by the registrar’s pen. None of his siblings
had the same last name but I’ll love them too:
the Che’s and Chen’s and Chong’s, all laid out
like a racist’s naughty nursery rhyme.
I’ll be shook by my buck-toothed gook
reflection. I’ll be cool with my coolie shape
and my sideways drape, how easily
my body zipperheads into anything else –
a container of chowmein, a coin slot
cooter choking open. I’ll be someone’s
bamboo chink and kimchee kink, though bitch,
I’m not even Korean. I’ll stan
my Jackie Chan doyenne Chinaman
brand. I’ll idealize this Oriental disguise.
I hope I just don’t know it yet.
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Lyn Li Che was born in Malaysia. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Crazyhorse, Michigan Quarterly Review, Indiana Review, Gulf Coast, Waxwing, PANK, Passages North, Tupelo Quarterly, BOAAT, River Styx, and others. A 2021 Kundiman Mentorship Lab Fellow, she currently lives in New York City, where she works in tech strategy.
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Mohd Noor Mahmud, Siri Kala Kota Bharu series: Main Ayun, acrylic on wood, 2006