when i turned seven, my mother

placed bamboo leaves in 

my hands and called it zòngzi

a recipe carried through the hands

of a grandmother whose face 

i only knew by name.

at seven, my mother stood barefoot in mud,

outside a shack she called her home 

watching it catch fire hours 

before the sun would rise,

holding nothing but a plastic bag 

stuffed with a handful of uncooked rice,

her fingers careful, the way bamboo leaves 

fold under them now, 

hands worn by clay bricks she stacked 

long before her tongue

knew what to make of language.

she shows me how to slide the rice

into the cradle of each leaf, how

to fold three generations of women 

small enough without spilling.

she guides my hands to tie the string

around the bamboo leaves just tight enough

to shove whatever grief we carry into the corners 

of the sticky rice, but not so tight

that anything bursts through.

sometimes, when she tightens the twine

i see a tremble in her hand, and i know 

she is somewhere back in that morning 

she never speaks of, and though 

she doesn’t believe in god, she knows 

that was when half of her became 

a star in the sky forever.