An ocean away my grandma has died.
My dad’s an orphan now. He tells me he still
reaches for the phone each night. I’m torn
between guilt for not crying and for pretending
to understand a poem he wrote by hand in his native tongue.
I can’t remember if I ever had a conversation with my nai nai.
Ni hao — hi. Zai jian — bye. I ask myself
“why are you not crying, do you not care”
he asks. All I can remember is saying
Ni hao. Zai jian. Ni hao. Zai jian
The red envelopes she gave me thick with yuan
as I thanked her in a language I didn’t understand.
I remember drawing eyes, big and blue,
the whole two hours of my weekly Chinese class.
How I became so natural at pretending I didn’t know
Chinese, that I forgot. Lisping an accent,
not responding and now, nai nai is dead.
And all I can remember saying to her is
hi and bye and hi and bye and hi. And bye.