The Model Minority Myth: Poetry Roundup

Each issue we feature the work of Asian female writers all over the world. Here are this issue’s poems:

Citrus Fruit from Asia 

My tangerine skin lay sprawled out on a marble counter,

a body dissected and waiting to be consumed. 

I cry too much for a girl who fitted her skin

with the rind of tangerines left over from family dinners. 

The paper-cuts never hurt much, 

Not when Americans made fun of my roots.

Not when I couldn’t peel a tangerine without staining yellow under my nails. 

They always stung most when the citrus

bled obediently from the fruit split  open.  

I had always loved the word “us,” As though the word itself was enough

To congeal all our parts together.  

Our love—leaking from the flesh of one

  body into another. Our roots—tangling with the American dream,

limbs forgetting where they stemmed.   

I placed my body into wanting palms, hungry for anything. 

A beautiful, skinned girl. 

No one knew how I should’ve tasted,

or how to manage tough skin

passed on from generations of survivors.  

But you knew how I should taste.  

You knew how to run your palm over my ribs and place your palm

at the softness of my stomach.  

Open me up with your fingertips, 

gently at first, then all at once. 

Leave me 

gasping.  

- Tiffany Low