Mothers, Giving and Taking

Allison Guan

In the eighties her mother

raised her right: put her in

piano classes. Pinched her sides

when she made mud pies.

Twenty years ago my mother

left for two thousand miles away.

Put me in piano classes.

Made me pies to eat and words to mold

from whatever tongue we shared.

In the twenty-twenties mother’s mother

came to us, a whole language away.

Mud-flies stir beyond the window

as she rocks: front—back—

to the marred music that is

mystery to us both.

I know only the songs

piano classes have pressed into me.

She knows only tonal melodies

stolen from the sixties streets

beyond the four-story factories.

AUTHOR BIO

Allison Guan is a writer and poet currently residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, and she has poems published or forthcoming in Down in the Dirt. In her free time, she can be found practicing piano, falling down Wikipedia rabbit-holes, and figuratively consuming textbook pages.