"The Little Fish" by Karlyn Jackson

A little hand that belonged to a boy

With a buzz cut and a scar over his eyebrow

Shot into the air. What’s your other name?

Your Chinese name, he said. You have a Chinese name, right?

It had been twenty-three years since her mother

Labored over it, looking down on her tiny figure,

Bundled in what used to be a clean white towel

On the laundromat floor—

Twenty-three years since her mother

Picked out the Hanzi by their

Beautiful strokes alone,

Painting them onto the back of their receipt book,

Slow and meticulous.

Fei Hong, Clara said. My name is Fei Hong.

My mama was killed by a fish,

Clara told her friends in preschool.

In Chinese, “diagnosis” sounded a whole lot like “squid”

To her. Was it a big fish? Did it take a bite out of her?

No,

It was a little fish.

Maybe it was because your mom couldn’t hear it coming.

Clara contemplated.

No,

Her mama had been deaf since birth, and had

Always been able to get along just fine.

I don’t think so, Clara said finally,

I didn’t hear it coming either.

The last time that Clara saw her mama, she was already dead.

She lay peacefully, in her usual silence,

Eyes closed, chest still.

Bunched up in bony fistfuls

Was the same comforter she wore

When Clara saw her for the very first time,

Its greyish, pearly material the same color

As her creepy, too-pale skin.

It was ten days before Clara’s fourth Christmas.

Baba hadn’t realized how much mama filled up his heart,

Nor how empty he would feel without her.

His record had always reminded him of mama,

Its sounds warm and calm,

Its songs about love and hope—

A bright and near future,

Even if she could never hear them.

Play your record, Clara would beg.

Play Twist and Shout so we can dance for mama!

Now that she was gone, its sound changed

—Like a longing for something that didn’t exist.

Clara still danced for baba,

Still practiced her calligraphy,

Still wore her red and yellow dresses,

Just like mama would’ve wanted.

For her, time went by freely, and

Emotions came and went easily.

For baba,

She looked just like her mother.

She looked back at the chalkboard,

At the characters that sounded more like mama

Than like her—like a beautiful, dumb

Silence. She thought of the memories that

Smelled like well-used inkstones and

Freshly cut lotus root. She thought of how

Her life turned from homemade to take out, how

The uniforms in the closet must not be there anymore, how

Someone else must have moved into the laundromat and

Painted over the walls where baba had measured her height and

Taken down the glow-in-the-dark stars she’d stuck on the ceiling.

She took up the chalkboard eraser,

Dense from going un-clapped,

And washed over the Chinese,

Leaving behind a layer of dusty residue.

She cleared her throat.

Please call me Miss Clara.