The Golden Prince Returns
I came home broken
but nobody could read my pain
like scars the color of skin or
adolescence nightmares of parents
as bananas molding yellow to gray
and the kid alone in busy airports,
abandonment a feeling of sin when
I was given everything.
Upper-middle education, Mom’s heart,
her wide eyes.
Once, I woke up screaming
everyone will die!
They spoiled me like an only child
slinging Grandfather’s name—
Auntie willing me an apartment on the beach,
uncle’s ashes, no sons calling for laundry.
She is a maiden lost but not forsaken.
I told Auntie, don’t worry, I’ll care for you
like how you bathed and fed my grandpa
at the end. I’ll relearn Chinese,
sober up, write poems, translate
why I am this way, always afraid,
always a flake. But this time,
I’ll practice nights before the wake.
Ballads inked in viscid blood
from our common tongue,
teeth dug into dry sponge,
dreaming of a father headstrong
for his family, a mother comforting
her baby, don’t worry, we’re here
and listening to your story.
• • •
Matthew Zhao is currently a PhD student at Florida State University. His first poetry collection, King of Song, has been a finalist in the National Poetry Series; a semifinalist in the Word Works Washington Prize, Longleaf Press Book Prize, and Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize; and longlisted in the Lost Horse Press Idaho Prize. His poetry appears or is forthcoming in Mississippi Review, swamp pink, Four Way Review, Frontier Poetry, Summerset Review, Indianapolis Review, Impossible Task, Shade Journal, and Santa Barbara Literary Journal.