Miami Lights

I was a three year old druggie, sick and practicing early.
I popped a bottle of cold pills because my parents bribed me
And immigrated to America fifty-two weeks later.
A step into the land of the free crippled half of me;
My left foot was still rooted in Tianjin, the city of my ancestors.
Lullabies of fallen gods and Li Bai
Sang me to sleep in a world of daytime television and jeans.
I woke and remembered a face
Lined with flashes of my own.
Patches of dreams, stapled together, left me
Breathless with anger. I walked
Silently out the door of my sheltered home,
Without a backward glance.
All the lights of Miami night cannot erase
The memory of a mother's smile of guilt and apology.