Faith Choe

When I kneel on the grass in front of the cave’s mouth, 

it smells like the chemical distress signals sprayed over my 

Virginia lawn. Next to me kneels my Indian-American friend,

her dark curls caressing the earth

underneath her feet. 

On this ground scatters those whose parents

escaped from war, famine, poverty, and graced 

this American soil with all the art and culture you can

ever imagine. The canopy of trees cover us from 

the burning sunlight, prompting us to huddle together 

to talk about what we are proud of and what we wish to hide. 

I say that I’m proud of my grandmother who risked every finger

she had at her tailor job in New York. I say that I wish to 

hide how small my eyes become when I smile. Another friend 

says he is proud of his family who escaped his country’s past regimes,

but he wants to hide the language his mother speaks to him

in Costco. In the cave, I hear the folktales of voices 

outside of America, which I want to hear. In that cave

I took a step, lowering my head to a Russian who is 

the son of North Korean defectors. He says that in Moscow, 

there aren’t many who look like him, so his classmates

avoid his mono-lidded gaze and mock it. I told him

that they used to do that to me as well, and something 

threaded through the blue light of our screens. So I thank the 

friends from Germany, The Philippines, Sweden, and

more. They showed me what morning looked like 

in their country, when only darkness cloaked the

night’s mist in mine. I thank those who taught me 

the words in their language with words

that are more sincerely conveyed 

than in English.