{"id":232181,"date":"2024-01-26T04:51:27","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T09:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=232181"},"modified":"2024-01-23T13:59:16","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T18:59:16","slug":"self-portrait-as-sister-a-poem-by-ae-hee-lee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/self-portrait-as-sister-a-poem-by-ae-hee-lee\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSelf-Portrait as Sister.\u201d A Poem by Ae Hee Lee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Self-Portrait as Sister<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sister, for you I\u2019ve made a world within this poem\u2019s mouth,<br \/>\nsince each mouth was created for constellations<br \/>\nof desire. In this poem, our general biographies<br \/>\nhaven&#8217;t changed: we were still born in one land,<br \/>\nraised in another, and live in cities perpetually<br \/>\nforeign to us. Because there\u2019s nothing wrong with that.<br \/>\nBut in here, our supple tongues weren&#8217;t raised measured by how close<br \/>\nour Englishes sounded to &#8220;the real thing.&#8221; Here our tongues are proud<br \/>\nmaps that guide us back to ourselves. Here we aren\u2019t sent whitening face<br \/>\nmasks of cactus extract and lemon oil (only moisturizing ones) by aunts<br \/>\nconcerned about our darkening skin tones, our unabashed flirting<br \/>\nwith the sun. Here people\u2019s kindness doesn\u2019t deny<br \/>\nwho we are.\u00a0 Here we aren\u2019t set apart<br \/>\nat customs, led like lambs to a gray room at the back,<br \/>\nwhere officers are numb with suspicion and the air is stagnant from travelers,<br \/>\nfamilies, holding their breaths and onto the warm sweat of each<br \/>\nother\u2019s hands as the seconds turn them colder.<br \/>\nIn this poem, they are not there either,<br \/>\nand none of us have missed our connecting trains or worried<br \/>\nany friends. Here, sister, you don\u2019t cry while clutching at the phone,<br \/>\nas if it were the unraveling, pastel-pink comfort<br \/>\nblanket we used to share as babies. Aloneness hasn\u2019t driven us<br \/>\ninto pining for a life where we try to fit into a shoe box<br \/>\nof a country, and our differences haven\u2019t made us<br \/>\nsmaller in the squinting gaze of others. Here I promise<br \/>\nno love will end in assimilation. It\u2019ll just not<br \/>\nend. Here I don\u2019t wish us belonging. I wish us<br \/>\nthe benediction of bell flowers and bees<br \/>\nand beloveds who\u2019ll hum with us sleepy songs.<br \/>\nI wish us here and beyond this poem: here, sister, here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: center;\">______________________________<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/images-us.bookshop.org\/ingram\/9781961209015.jpg?height=500&amp;v=v2-5404dfaf4692cf4dbbc010e70d1225af\" alt=\"Asterism: Poems - Lee, Ae Hee\" width=\"221\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/132\/9781961209015\">Asterism<\/a>\u00a0<em>by Ae Hee Lee is available via Tupelo Press.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Self-Portrait as Sister Sister, for you I\u2019ve made a world within this poem\u2019s mouth, since each mouth was created for constellations of desire. In this poem, our general biographies haven&#8217;t changed: we were still born in one land, raised in another, and live in cities perpetually foreign to us. Because there\u2019s nothing wrong with that. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15919,"featured_media":232188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,43074,43077],"tags":[93135,93136,164,212,6213],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/ae.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-YoR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232181"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15919"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}