Based on Elegy for a Broken Machine by Patrick Phillips
My mother didn’t buy
ceramic bowls
for the xiang gu zhu gu soups
she made every weekend
to soothe our throats
raw from shouting.
I am too proud to ask her
for the recipe
but I searched for a vessel to
contain the remnants
of my memories
in the dim dusty aisles
of Gold Valley. Were you
born in China
or made in a foreign land?
Your blue and white vines
crisscross in veins,
diamonds fencing in a field
of flowers, machine or manmade,
now just jagged triangles of painted clay,
cheap sharp bits too pointed
to touch. She would hold you
when you were whole
and still call you lang fei qian
a waste of money.
Who knows
why I kept these shattered parts?
Where do we throw away
art, and save
the things that stay forever?
Like each fragment of a mosaic
buried in the concrete wall,
or round mounds of white rice
marking your place.
I could never decide
when to bring you out
down from the highest shelves,
away from curious little fingers
reaching for whatever
they’ve never found —
their eyes hoping for something
within your circular shape. I think
even your presence,
if one writes it,
means something.
