SILVER KEY AWARD WINNING POETRY

(Don’t) Forget it

“Stop Asian Hate”

It’s in my blood

Red kimchi with a spicy kick

Whenever you bite down hard

We aren’t a virus 

Something to strike when frail

White knuckles cracking a kind face

While an eagle soars above

Yellow-bellied beast

Taekwondo will not win

Racists aren’t afraid of signs 

Karate chop them into toothpicks

Satisfyingly sturdy 

When will it finally snap?

Hate’s end will always be too late

Shots, Shouts, Screams of Separation

Faithful Halmuni’s* martyred 

Their grandchildren struggle with chopsticks

Starving for kimbap and bulgogi*

Leaving with an upset stomach

We endure

Tiger Moms and Lion Dads 

Clawing us into a corner 

Opening up a path to success, pride

Ridiculed for being ahead

“Jokes” of questionable intent

Hitting the bullseye

On the back of our necks

If we are all kung fu masters, 

Why is it so hard to fight back?

*Halmuni is Korean for grandmother, kimbap and bulgogi are traditional Korean foods

A Threnody for Sierra Blanca, TX

Coyotes lie in wait 

In the airless desert the big red state 

Where crepe-eyed men live and breathe

Portly and blight-skinned 

Or is this a mirage? 

Deep in the heart of Texas 

Brothers but more than that twins 

Identical in every way 

Flashing their soiled cuffs and sweat’s 

Slip around their cracked lips 

Knowing what’s theirs and claiming it

Deep in the heart of Texas

Migrants trekking along the trail 

Sun-sizzled skin and feet wail 

Parched searching for a well

Wishing for the American Dream

Followed by four identical eyes with a sole intention

— to kill

Michael with Mark Sheppard with rifles 

With palms old enough to be my father’s dad 

With a reflection that stares back

Glints off bullets with sunlight against prison bars and the warden’s glasses 

Held up by a crooked nose and yellowed teeth and a bloodied smile 

Scoped in – click

Safety’s off as they cross the border

All for a drink of water

The pickup truck drops more than just tears—

Precious water, rippled bullets quenching the Sheppards’ thirst for blood

Claiming they were mere game with no respawns 

A man’s beating heart stopped a flat line of separation

Sheppards killing their own sheep 

Deep in the heart of Texas

I look down at my own boy white knuckles 

As I think that they were boys once but wonder 

How did they become so high with dirtied hands gripping the bat 

Face dirtied with nosebleeds 

Wondering how you can go 

From throwing a baseball to get a boy out 

To killing a man 

And why in Texas my state my beloved state 

Where stunned I watched Roseate Spoonbills land and stretch and wax 

Their majestic wings in the humid mosquito blanket breeze did this happen? 

My brother and I born and bred in Texas 

With our Pokemon cards and early morning swim practices

Struck breathless by the lightning rays of dawn 

With leftover Indian food for lunch 

With scents of jasmine at night 

Overflowing from our neighbors’ yard poured into ours 

As if it was our own and sitting around a camp fire 

In Wemberley TX next to the river undulating through shooting stars 

With kids I grew up with 

Watching for unidentified flying objects 

Seeing for the first time the different shades of night flex and flutter and I 

Wonder breathless how do I make others see this Texas that I see?

Coyotes lie in wait 

In the airless desert 

Crying out to the moon 

Warning others that the sun 

Pushes out soon another root 

Looking for water 

An oasis

A mirage

Deep in the heart of Texas