A Compassionate Racial Analysis

We borrowed Guanyin’s head because we thought it would make us wise.
We planned to give it back when we were wise; instead it cracked
into eleven pieces. Twenty-two eyes, we stared at ourselves until we were paralyzed.
We borrowed Guanyin’s head because we thought it would make us wise.
When we say we I mean I. When I say wise I mean when white grief climbs
into my gut, I think of myself: you are what is swallowed, what has died.
We borrowed Guanyin’s head because I thought it would make us wise.
I planned to give it back when I was wise. Instead I cracked, and lied.

ξ

Jasmine An comes from the Midwest. She has also lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand, studying language, urban development and climate change, and blacksmithing. Her chapbook, Naming the No-Name Woman, won the 2015 Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize and her next, Monkey Was Here, is forthcoming in early 2018. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in HEArt, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Red Paint Hill, and The Blueshift Journal, among others. She is a Hedgebrook alumna, and a PhD student in English and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan.