A Petrarchan sonnet from my poetry collection Fighting Kite . . .


      Wedlock

Papa said, "You know I would have to kill you,"
To Mama, who sat quietly, head bowed.
I was just a kid — five or six — and cried
deep gut-wrenching sobs. The moon, like a new
coin in the window, sliced in half by blue
knives of cloud. "You're too young to understand,
Vin," he smiled. "It would be my duty as a man."
A tear on her cheek, Mama whispered, "That's true."

To this day, I don't know if there was another man
Or if they were only talking possibility,
In case, for example, Mama felt her face
Begin to flush downstairs with a repairman.
Her only safety net then — Papa's motto,
A place for everything, everything in its place.



First appeared in Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing,
eds. Shirley Geok-Lin Lim and Cheng Lok Chua



In my non-Goodreads blog, The Man with the Blue Guitar, a post titled "Weddings and Knife Clouds" features this poem.