I.

I am a short history 

of sidewalks lining Midwestern suburbs.

I am a short history of words,

like red brick public schools. 

Chicago to Beijing is six thousand five hundred miles,

reduced to the empty halls of a passenger jet.

My words confiscated 

at O’Hare baggage claim. 

My grandpa and I sit now in front of the desk.

“dai means Wear. 

Wear means dai,” my grandpa says. 

Chinese words are made of words

so that each has its own history. 

A single word is actually the many words that give it meaning.  

I repeat. 

dai. Wear

II.

Changsha has skyscrapers like stalactites,

wearing steel covers. 

The words here are made of other words,

prefixes and suffixes. And I am a suffix

that begins 

where my grandfather’s words end and holds hands

with another.

I write dai, and my hands are shaky.

The lines of the word cross like flights on a radar,

each amputated from the other. 

Fourteen stories below the apartment,

crowds fill the markets

buying fish, eel, and meat.  

Their language is oil in my mouth.

Changsha wears the humid air 

of my grandfather’s palms as he turns over to a new sheet,

beginning to write it again. 

dai. Wear

III.

Dark wooden desk,

warmed by the daylight.

My grandpa’s voice sounds worn,

his words form slowly from his mouth.

He writes with calloused hands. 

The Mandarin character holds its ground,

green in the sunlight like the statue of liberty. 

Even skyscrapers cannot block the sun. 

Flight to China.

Back again. 

dai. Wear.