• Palinode
• Michael Prior (bio)

My mother is stalking cabbage moths with a tennis racket. She looksmost like herself when she tenses then swings over rows of kale and romaineat the white specks floating through blue shadows. She is bisectedby the swaying frame, distanced by the poor resolution of the videomy sister just sent. Her left hand is bandaged: tendonitis from pickingcaterpillars and eggs off the leaves with chopsticks. As if to proveobsession is its own lineage I have spent hours checking the sunstuntedshiso for iridescent beetles, bodies tufted with fine hairslike the down on a dandelion seed, spent years wondering what it meantto be her or her parents, uprooted, dispossessed. I can see so clearlytime's possession in the way I speak— like her—the preference for detail,for impossible control, how my skin has pocked and wrinkled, the gray [End Page 295] growing up my temples. I am thinking of the time she was enrolled in an ESL class,even though she only spoke English; the time she told me on the phonethat because I had left, I couldn't come back; the time I stole twenty dollarsfrom the jar under her bed; or all the times she corrected my pronunciation: repeat:indistinguishable, inconsolable, inevitable that I won't return home for another year.By then, she will have stopped dyeing her hair. There are no equivalencies,only echoes. I am alone and watching my mother watching something aboveher head. My mother is swinging and missing. My mother is cryingfor her mother. My mother is referring to herself as Oriental. As old.The cabbage moths arrived on the coast in the late 19th century, just before our family.Now, these shimmering beetles are weighing down the leaves.When I look back, my mother has become indistinguishablefrom the shadows under the trees. [End Page 296]

Michael Prior's poems have appeared in the New Republic, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Narrative, the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day series, and the Asian American Writers' Workshop's The Margins. He is the author of Burning Province (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House 2020) and Model Disciple (Véhicule Press 2016).

• 帕利诺德
• 迈克尔·普里尔（生物）

我母亲正在用网球拍缠卷心菜蛾。当她的时态然后在穿过蓝色阴影的白色斑点上荡荡的羽衣甘蓝和长叶莴苣时，她看起来最像她自己。摇晃的镜框将她一分为二，而我姐姐刚发送的视频的分辨率差则使她一目了然。她的左手包扎了绷带：使用筷子从树叶上摘下毛毛虫和卵子而得的肌腱炎。仿佛要证明迷恋是它自己的血统，我花了数小时检查日光照射下的紫苏中是否有虹彩甲虫，身上长满了细毛，像蒲公英的种子一样簇绒着，花了好几年的时间才想知道这是什么意思成为她或她的父母，连根拔起，被剥夺了。我能像我一样清晰地看到时间的占有-像她一样-对细节的偏爱，无法控制，我的皮肤如何皱纹和起皱，灰色[End Page 295] 在我的太阳穴中长大。尽管她只会说英语，但我在想她何时参加ESL课程。她在电话里告诉我因为我已经走了，所以我不能回来了。我从她床底下的罐子里偷了二十美元的时间；还是她纠正我的发音的所有时间：重复：难以区分，无法安慰，无法避免我再回家一年。届时，她将不再染发。没有等价物，只有回声。我一个人，看着妈妈看着她头顶上方的东西。我妈妈在荡秋千，想念。我的母亲为她的母亲哭泣。我母亲自称是东方人。一样古老。卷心菜蛾在十九世纪末期到达海岸，就在我们家人面前。现在，这些闪闪发光的甲虫正压在叶子上。当我回头看时，我的母亲与树下的阴影变得难以区分。[结束页296]

迈克尔·普里尔（Michael Prior）的诗歌曾出现在《新共和国》，《诗歌》，《西北诗歌》，《叙事》，美国诗人学院的《一日之诗》系列以及亚裔美国人作家工作室的《边缘》中。他是《燃烧的省》（McClelland＆Stewart / Penguin Random House 2020）和模型门徒（VéhiculePress 2016）的作者。