“Shelled peanuts in my mother’s hometown” by Harmony Chen
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Shelled peanuts in my mother’s hometown” by Harmony Chen, second place winner of the 2026 Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize for Canadian Youth, senior category.
Shelled peanuts in my mother’s hometown
By Harmony Chen
Hunan flows in rivers of unspoken language; rivers
emerge in currents that collapse into a flood basin.
I emerge at the intersection of your lungs, where your
sleeping aquifers meet the tumbling sea
and tough bamboo roots erupt your thick, wet skin,
porous to hungry caterpillars and oxidized tears,
to the buries of a dead poet’s dream, unkempt yet
carried by songbirds in the forest’s clearing.
I lie at the intersection of your heart, where my
rhizomatous roots slither in the soil of my ancestors
where you birthed the world from your breathing womb,
life seething through your bleeding wounds.
Pour remedy into china pots of 安化² tea; 安: peace, pieced
in recipes of grandmother & grandmothers cutting
pears, left untouched, that lay begging in silent apologies
to worn daughters & daughters who dreamed to
climb beyond the mountains of Hunan,
to betray the warm wet hugs of your river valleys.
I stand at the intersection of your hands, where 妈³
used to be: on a plastic red stool, hunched over heaps
of unshelled peanuts awaiting to be plucked by two
thumbs—pushing the cavity in the centre—crack—
Heaps of shelled peanuts await delivery to Saturday’s
market, save the handful in my pocket awaiting my devouring.
I flower at the intersection of your palm, where these
roasted peanuts grind into a thickened paste
& grandmother’s remedies grow wanderlust in your garden
& mother’s dreams echo beyond the low dangling moon
& my sweat sweet lips caress your porous skin
& your soil feeds mine.
Translations:
²安化 (ān huà): a popular tea leaf farmed in Hunan, believed to bring healing and peace
³妈 (mā): mom
Copyright © Harmony Chen
Second place winner of the 2026 Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize for Canadian Youth, senior category.
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