Summary of ah-mah by Shirley Geok-lin Lim?
Grandmother was smaller
than me at eight. Had she
been child forever?
Helpless, hopeless, chin sharp
as a knuckle, fan face
hardly half-opened, not a scrap
of fat anywhere; she tottered
in black silk, leaning on
handmaids on two tortured
fins. At sixty, his sons all
married, grandfather bought her
Soochow flower song bird.
every bone in her feet
Had been broken, bound tighter
Than any neighbor's sweet
daughter's. ten toes and instep
curled inwards, yellow petals
of chrysanthemum, wrapped
in gold cloth. He bought the young
face, small knobby breast
he swore he'd not dress in sarong
of maternity. Each night
he held her feet in his palms
like lotus in the tight
hollow of celestial lakes.
In his calloused flesh, her
Weightless soles, cool and slack,
Clenched in his stranger's fever.