Dragon Fruit

We didn’t see the dragon fruit lights

arriving late as we did, thinking of

Popo and Gong Gong’s graves 

which we would visit the next day. If only

we drove a few roads over, Jiu Ma said,

but she had been recovering from the bad oysters 

from the night before and forgot. I remember 

how a glittering thing might be called 灿烂 ,

which is the word blazing followed directly 

by the word rotten, and how 

a life too could be 灿烂, brilliant, 

but not, I suppose, an oyster 

because a blazing, rotten oyster 

is not so brilliant. I didn’t understand 

the phrase at first. My mother says 

it's because flowers are the most beautiful 

just before they rot, though I wonder 

if to glitter is simply to shift between life 

and decay like a flame or a knife, turning, 

catching the light. Speaking of,

to say something is personal is to say it

cuts the body, 切身, and the word for 

fruit, 果, is the same as for consequence. 

Forgive me. It’s been a long time since

I’ve returned. It’s been a long time since

I’ve returned to language. Last time 

my mother returned alone two years after

Popo died. She wept because, being

a daughter who should have married  

into another family, she was barred from 

her father’s family temple, barred from

saying goodbye. Back in Shenzhen we 

celebrate 冬至, the Winter Solstice,

burning joss paper yuan and incense 

so our ancestors may have money to spend

in the other world. Though we don’t talk about

celebrating festivals so much as passing 

through them, 过, as we do through time, or

as we do when we die. Before we knelt 

I saw my mother look to Jiu Jiu, 

her father’s son, as if asking for permission 

to speak to their parents again. Jiu Ma tutted, 

oh don’t be ridiculous, we don’t follow those 

traditions here. And I, fatherless, 

daughter of a daughter, 

knelt too. Did our 

ancestors embrace us

or pity us? The next day

we drove to the airport for

my flight home. We didn’t see 

the dragon fruit lights, Jiu Ma

lamented. I imagine the sea of 

lanterns, the yearlong harvest 

of consequences. Today, as I pass 

through the Melbourne 

General Cemetery I wonder, 

Will I ever see my father’s grave?