Out of China

Traveling out of China
A man with downcast eyes
struggles to lift his suitcase
gently so gently
to the conveyor belt as he checks in
His jet eyes stray to the left
as he masks the sound of wheels churning in his head
with a thin lipped grin
He thinks—
good or bad, good or bad
I’ve done this twice before, it bothers me still
His eyes linger on his pregnant luggage
as it glides through plastic flaps and out of sight
At gate four he sinks into a worn vinyl seat and opens his book
the white pages become shadowed
and he hears the clink of metal on metal
handcuffed
When they unzipped the case
inside they saw
fit like a puzzle
porcelain, honey toned
legs and arms
wrapped and hugging each other
Fifty six small eyes closed in tranquil slumber
and thin hair like caps of raven feathers
Twenty eight smuggled baby girls
quiet in a black suitcase—
the stork to twenty seven
and the coffin for one

I remember sitting and ripping

At the layers of the light blue tulle that grazed the floor—
Your blue fairy dress—
Winding and pulling the small thin scraps around my chubby little girl fingers

All I could do was look up at that dress
My mother a sparkling beauty in faded blue-
wings behind her
She gave me glitter to throw but it was not as magical as her
The woman who was supposed to know everything
How could she not
Blue mascara

I rubbed it on my arm
While my dirty piggy toes slipped into bowed party heels
I untangled your gold chains and put a ring on every finger
And they clinked and clanked and slid around

She said
Some day I’ll give this to you
I could never picture this some day
But now I see that some day
is today and I

a startling reflection of you
with jeweled reminders of your past
around my neck
and hugging my long fingers
with your wings always behind me