中国大好き

Jun’er
KNITTING MILL

I was in second year junior high
mother sent father to our country high school
to take me straight to the village-run knitting mill

they promised me
if elder sister wouldn’t make it to college
she’d come to work at the mill so I could

go on and study
it meant only one sister
could go to school

fate didn’t favor my sister
fell short a few points at the entrance exam
I went back to school, made it to Jinan in Shandong

sister worked and got married
had a stillbirth, got poisoned from pesticides
she killed herself

raising the past for the nth time at dinner table
mother says you all don’t have it worst
it’s the truth who had it worst vanished in smoke

Tr. MW, Jan. 2015

标签： birth, college, death, exams, fairness, family, knitting, marriage, past, pesticides, poetry, poison, school, sister, suicide, work

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