Self-Portrait as So Much Potential
       

Dreaming of one day being as fearless as a mango.

As friendly as a tomato. Merciless to chin & shirtfront.

Realizing I hate the word "sip."

But that's all I do.

I drink. So slowly.

& say I'm tasting it. When I'm just bad at taking in liquid.

I'm no mango or tomato. I'm a rusty yawn in a rumored year. I'm an arctic attic.

Come amble & ampersand in the slippery polar clutter.

I am not the heterosexual neat freak my mother raised me to be.

I am a gay sipper, & my mother has placed what's left of her hope on my brothers.

She wants them to gulp up the world, spit out solid degrees, responsible
                        grandchildren ready to gobble.

They will be better than mangoes, my brothers.

Though I have trouble imagining what that could be.

Flying mangoes, perhaps. Flying mango-tomato hybrids. Beautiful sons.

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Copyright © 2017 Chen Chen All rights reserved
from When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities
BOA Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission