Passing
to some people means the passing of time or the passing of
loved ones and i think about that as my friend drives me up the
mountain pass
in america
it is the passing from one color to another and when he parks along
the dirt roadside because i wanted stars and he wanted practice
strumming on his guitar i
hop out his moonroof and dance to his beat
without worn-out leather covering my swing in my feet
i feel his chords as tangible oscillations against a breeze
and i am warm in the cheeks when i imagine his strings
sprinkling tunes among twinkling stars
pressed melodically
into the space above us singing of
wonderful worlds blooming, hooked
on feelings and luck being
a lady but can i claim i love swing when i do not pass
according to whoever decides i fail to rules that slither together
and convene as a line between two kinds and passing
becomes a faked fullness
pureness on the surface of a lie
and can i claim that i know jazz when
jazz is black
and even when one is half of a color
or most of the blood the rule is they are all or
they are not and none of the wind against my face
can blow me further than when i am told it is not true that i say
truly i am american
when in taiwan i am not taiwanese
in china i am not chinese and it is in america
where i can pass as both and korean and japanese
so i take a swig of patron and pass it along and i wonder
would i pass as american
if this tequila in the canyons were instead bourbon in the woods
and our laughter rang
like freedom among trees and not
an echo reaching for peaks but bringing back silence
could i say i were american without asian attached by a string
if my three-year-old camry were a truck
a rusty thing
when he reminds me i want stars i am beneath stars
and they shined brighter when destiny
was manifesting
and yet
i twirl in this dirt that once rushed with gold and tell him
to pick up his guitar and keep me singing
persuading him to fly
me to the moon among those stars because this is america
where it is okay if some stars are
dim against lights in the city
of angels and it don’t matter if they don’t shine
because americans only need about fifty in the sky to pass
through a night
Elizabeth Chen is a writer, private tutor, and English lecturer at the local community colleges in Orange County, California. Her poem “Next Word, Please” can be found in The Hong Kong Review, and her beloved dog, Bobo, can be found with Christ in heaven.
