Before it all, there was thunder: Ba’s lavender incense
      bleeding through floral wallpaper. We sang hymns

 

as well as we did silence. Stayed alive
      through the monsoon, through the thickening slaughter.

 

Before we were too grown to forget our promises,
      there was lightning, and across the dinner table—

 

pans of bao zi clinging like memory
      to wet parchment. As if moisture absolves grief.

 

All night, Ma repeats we didn’t have much, but we had grit.
      But I think, looking back on it now, a piece of me

 

died back there. We didn’t have much. Another piece of me
      died on the train ride home. But we had grit. I kept quiet

 

then, hands overflowing with names not mine. I still keep
      quiet now. In the kitchen: I ready what remains,

 

kiss goodbye the mold in our walls. And yet. The night before
      we leave Ba tells me pack light. Breathe lighter. Now a 9:52 train

 

carries us miles through a sodden field, road lines splicing
      into one until all I see is smoke. The ribcage of train tracks

 

thrumming like surrender under my feet. Our house,
      crimson. Even the flames are weeping.