“three vignettes of filial piety” by Elias Tung
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “three vignettes of filial piety” by Elias Tung.
three vignettes of filial piety
By Elias Tung
i.
in the car ride to surgery
mama asked me if she chose wrong
no one wanted to live like this
destitute and driving a borrowed car
with no heating in december
she said, this wasn’t the plan
what was? i asked
the mark on her ring finger
two parallel lines fading away
image coming into sharper focus
even through rose coloured lenses.
it’s harsh to call your mother ugly
but compared to the one nostalgia was fond of
the woman with the classy jewelry
i tugged at with magpie fingers
the mixed garble of red-brown hues
that she somehow always knew the right shade of
in the back of the taxi
she is better without a man
there wasn’t any right or wrong,
i said instead. swallowing my rage
along with her silence, along with her
diplomacy between a changeling
and a man
you were in love
ii.
i look like mama in the mirror
thank god not the dad,
all the best were her dowry
wits and looks, charm and smile
all the worst were his leavings
a genetic disposition to depression
a sadistic, perhaps psychopathic curiosity
cowardice, perhaps; fragility, definitely
he once said i had bones suitable
for martial arts
round and hard to break
they were his bones too
and they shattered
even before the divorce.
iii.
let me coin a scientific term to it
no more beauty is in the eye of the beholder
no more, your flaws disappear in my eyes
the greeks were right,
it is poison towards rationality
love bias, oh how it even blinds
god to his own creations
Copyright © Elias Tung
Elias Tung is a trans Taiwanese man living in Toronto, Canada. He has previously been published in #CHERRYCult Magazine. New to the poetry scene, he hopes to introduce a legal and musical perspective from his education as both a law student and a music student from Osgoode Hall Law School and Western University respectively.
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