{"id":2872,"date":"2022-11-29T19:34:11","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T23:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/?page_id=2872"},"modified":"2022-11-29T19:34:11","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T23:34:11","slug":"ten-years-after-she-pawned-her-shadow","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/poetry-archive\/ten-years-after-she-pawned-her-shadow\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten years after she pawned her shadow"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Black

From the series “Resonance” by Shee Gomes<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ten years after she pawned her shadow<\/b><\/h1>\n

Amy Wang<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

for its stitching, my mother went back to Shanghai<\/span><\/p>\n

to see if my grandmother could make her a new one.<\/span><\/p>\n

If anyone can do it<\/span><\/i>, she told me, <\/span>it would be my mother<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

that could do it<\/span><\/i>. Before she left, she packed the skins<\/span><\/p>\n

of things that had once been precious to her young<\/span><\/p>\n

eyes. The key to the first apartment we\u2019d lived in<\/span><\/p>\n

in America, the duvet cover she\u2019d turned into<\/span><\/p>\n

a wedding dress for a play I\u2019d been in in sixth grade.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pressed flowers, wet desire, the skim-milk skin<\/span><\/p>\n

of the rain she had stood beneath that first Friday<\/span><\/p>\n

afternoon, when her ankles were newly unmoored<\/span><\/p>\n

to the pavement, her fingers sucked dry of their attention<\/span><\/p>\n

to detail. The night before her flight, she held<\/span><\/p>\n

my face in her hands and told me that she knew this<\/span><\/p>\n

because she would do it for me. <\/span>Only daughters and mothers<\/span><\/i>,<\/span><\/p>\n

she said. The light fell over her hair, into the empty<\/span><\/p>\n

space behind her, yawning wider and wider and<\/span><\/p>\n

wider until there was a suggestion of a mouth<\/span><\/p>\n

in its place. <\/span>Only mothers and daughters<\/span><\/i>. Beneath<\/span><\/p>\n

it all was that fine titration of hope. Perhaps, perhaps,<\/span><\/p>\n

perhaps. The day was calling her from the spine<\/span><\/p>\n

of another country, and she was calling herself<\/span><\/p>\n

a girl again. I did not have it within me to tell<\/span><\/p>\n

her that <\/span>waipo<\/span><\/i> had died four years ago, that her<\/span><\/p>\n

shadow was one of the things that she could only<\/span><\/p>\n

think about fully at night. <\/span>Only mothers and daughters<\/span><\/i>,<\/span><\/p>\n

she told me. I knelt before her. I could not<\/span><\/p>\n

put my hand on her knee. I didn\u2019t know how<\/span><\/p>\n

to touch her in a way that would make sense<\/span><\/p>\n

to the both of us. And so I bowed my head<\/span><\/p>\n

and pretended that I was praying, even though<\/span><\/p>\n

I had stopped believing in God years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

Only mothers and daughters<\/span><\/i>, I thought to myself.<\/span><\/p>\n

How much I knew it to be true.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Amy Wang<\/b> is a writer from California. She is a 2020 prose alumnus of The Adroit Journal’s summer mentorship under Andrew Gretes. When not crying over fanfiction, you can find her translating Chinese literature, coding, and taking long walks.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Born in 1987 in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil, with a degree in Digital Design, Shee Gomes<\/strong> began her work in visual arts at the same year she graduated from college in 2009. Shee has been showcasing her work in a variety of exhibitions, collaborations and projects, with curated works featuring
\ninternational books and magazines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Ten years after she pawned her shadow Amy Wang   for its stitching, my mother went back to Shanghai to see if my grandmother could make her a new Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5788,"featured_media":0,"parent":1261,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2872"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3209,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2872\/revisions\/3209"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}