Jisu Yee

I.

with my grandpa atop a grassy hill

in a moment that’s part memory, part dream, part fiction but all true. I’m eating the ice cream

he bought me and avoiding his questions skillfully. Even so, I can’t help but watch him

toss a ball to two young boys and touch

hands with a toddler on the sidewalk. Watch

the creasing around his eyes that resemble tiny tributaries. I sigh into the ground. One week a year

can only beget the same questions, the same answers. Droplets of sweet melting liquid cross my palms and wrists, and I lick them up,

not thinking about if the stickiness would remain.

II.

in an well-air conditioned room at a hotel

in the mountains, lifting the window latch before I knew it was bad for the environment. I stuck my head outside, the glass almost gliding

against my neck like a guillotine.

The air was not the faint mist

of kid sprinklers that I had expected, but full-bodied, at times clear then musky, decadent and

wistful, or maybe just humid—at that moment I understood what sommeliers claim to experience.

I didn’t dare to close my eyes, vaguely fearing that I would lose some subtlety of sensation.

III.

switching between telling my mother I know and I hear you, but keep forgetting what I promise her.

One morning the sirens are about howling and the sun can’t seem to leave us alone. She props

a parasol open and holds one hand over my ear as if that’d block them both out. I keep

telling myself that this is the summer where I can sing in the kitchen, swing my feet off the fire escape at first light, when everyone’s asleep.

Instead, I cling onto my mother’s arm, forgetting what we said to each other last night, my sweat sinking into her skin.