Oxtail
Jamie Uy When she slept she dreamt of mornings. Her mother frying banana fritters her brothers bicycling across rice terraces her cheek on cool bamboo
floors. Day greening like a crab apple ready to pick off the tree. Houses
on stilts farmers plowing their fields grandmothers weavelooming scarves grandfathers chewing betel nuts paper kites like dragonflies peach
blossoms molded out of glutinous rice. In the dream she was eating
salted fish with chili paste warming herself near the fire. When she awoke her mouth was dry she was shivering only her mother’s black sarong
covering her no brothers no food. She got up slowly. She wanted to pray
to the ancestors to her mother but she had no coin to throw nothing white to wear no pig no fruit to place at the altar. Gelid air. Each day colder than the last. The girl dreamed often of her mother as she trudged through valley after valley. Strained her ear for bombs. She cursed every god
every animal every ghost every flower every holything. Until her tongue
felt dead dumb desiccated. Moonchipped mountains sneaklaughing at
her. She was sure there were fat catfish somewhere if only. She could find a river. She longed for a frog to eat but there were none.
She had no clothes except for the sarong. Watermelonskirt with stripes.
The last time she ate watermelon was two days before the uniformed men came. Her mother reserved the sarong for festivals wore silver jewelry
and a greenmango belt. She knotted the cotton frayed scorched around her chest. Before she had breasts small hills now the little peaks had
collapsed. During nights she wondered if she might have married the
boy. He had smiled when she held his hand during the xoedance. The branches of her body thin. If she survived how would she ever bear a child. She thought if this is living no one should ever be born.
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