the river forgets in circles — Austin Bate-Agborsangaya

Every sentence begins again where it ends

I write water and hear my mother say it wrong 

her mouth searching for the r in the dark. 

水    。     translation is a wound that repeats: 

we eddy, 

      we double back,

            i inherit waipo’s same salt.

               our faces recur on coins tossed in a whirlpool.

                   I am reading a map of exits—

       grandmother’s mouth, purplish,

  lips parted like exit wound.

Water.

the past into the present

pressing its soy-soiled fingertips

is where Chinese becomes American becomes silence.

O

—Her mouth opens.

When she dies, we will sit still as temple gods.

The purple bruises of my inheritance

blossoming. 

_______________________

水 — Shui “Water”

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Austin Bate-Agborsangaya is a future New York Times bestselling author who daylights as a long-suffering high school sophomore and moonlights as an artist and creative. He currently spends his days divided between Taiwan and the United States.