In my hands the blue teapot has a weight.

I can imagine where it lived in the old house

Where my grandma had to wait.

The dark walls rough as bark

Underneath my fingers.

Outside, I hear the guard dog bark.

In the courtyard, the beat

Of some hopping game my cousins play.

In the kitchen, strange cooking roots that look like beets.

I can tell my uncle’s coming from his gait.

He walks past and farther in,

Behind him the creak of the garden gate.

He stands by the family altar

All our names written in a book

Over years the pages hardly alter.

The drying laundry seems

Like ghosts

The wind crying over mended seams.

My mother speaking how she was taught

In her broken mother tongue

Waiting for her next word, the air grows taut.

Next to strange family, I palm

Their home made dumplings

And feel this round, blue teapot in my palms.