Esther Vincent Xueming (b. 1987)

SELECTED POEMS

My father’s hands

For my father

My father’s hands are dark
from prolonged exposure to the sun.
With those hands, he fixes

air compressors forgotten at the back
of sweating factories.
His palms are red. I remember

wishing mine were red like his.
How we used to press
our palms together, to measure

how fast I was growing.
My father’s hands guide me from pillar
to pillar as I roll on wheels, reaching

for the great beyond.
At twelve, he tattoos an anchor
in blue ink into the curve

between his thumb and forefinger.
He talks about removing it, and I touch
my right thigh, tracing seafoam green,

anchors searching for dry land.
Moored yet adrift
in the sea of our being.

*

In a lost jotter book,
my father pencils miniature animals
in lead: deer, bird, dog, cat.

He takes my hands and we roll over
the snare and tom-toms
in church, my father making it look

so easy.
Many childhoods ago,
my father caught spiders with his hands,

climbed over fences
and into drains to catch fish.
In an old photograph,

he carries me with two hands,
a young and handsome father beaming
into the future.

*

He keeps his tattoo.
He continues to work
with his hands, just as he loves

with his hands, ironing my dress,
clipping my nails, cutting an apple.
When I move out and my cupboard breaks, 

he comes down with a spare hinge.
The dog is curious. He pats her soft head
with his right hand, the same hand

that held me to sleep during a nightmare.
My electric switch is faulty.
I text him, and he arrives with a new box.

Pass me the Phillips head?
I tilt my flashlight into the darkness
as he shows me how to connect

live to live,
neutral to neutral,
earth to earth.

by Esther Vincent Xueming
from Red Earth (2021)

 

SELECTED POEMS: "State Land" >