Wrapped up in a dream of velvet 

Butter and love goldened and browned 

By somebody’s mother’s hands 

Arthritis-worn, goldened and browned 

By the proud american sun 

And her proud american sons 

Somebody’s mother not mine 

It’s her hands that tuck me under 

Her handmade-homemade-made with love Snug up to my chin with american stories 

Of freedom and love and red white blue 

And a recipe passed down from 

Her mother’s mother’s american hands 

Somebody’s mother not mine 

It’s my head that sinks into her 

Pillow of thick still bubbling 

Indigo goop of sweet— too sweet 

Not red enough to be violet 

Not not-red enough to be blue 

Summers of stained arthritis-unworn fingers Somebody’s mother not mine 

Wrapped up in a dream that’s not mine 

Creased and grease-stained and borrowed Like a promise long forgotten in the wrinkles On the knuckles on the back of my mother’s hands That do not need any kind of sun to be goldened Because her mother’s mother’s hands bestowed Her with fingers rich like the bitter tannins Of the tea leaves at the bottom of a teacup 

It’s her hands that made my own 

And blessed me with the same yearning 

The same fingers that stretch and grasp for her sliver of Pie only to find wisps of the sweet too sweet scent That lingers long after the tin is licked clean So different from the sultry smokiness 

Of the tea leaves at the bottom of a teacup 

It’s my head that hates the hands 

That made my own goldened and browned

Because in a land of red white blue There’s no room for hands of yellow That don’t look good on anyone anyway sallow and sickly skinned from the stains Of the tea leaves at the bottom of a teacup 

I am my mother’s chinese daughter A child of america too blue to be red Too red to be blue, too yellow to be white I don’t inherit my mother’s recipes I inherit my mother’s dreams 

That wrap me in hopeless duvets of downy Drowning dreamy dreams dreamt.