Namesake
Addie Tsai
I want to tell you something I’ve told you before,
how my mother, pregnant, held us—
her belly—swirling, sitting on a seventies sofa,
watching Paper Moon. Little spitfire
Addie, learning how to con, eight
& motherless, smoking a cigarette. Fingers
trembling from the longing of the joint
that used to grace them, Mama picked up
crocheting needles instead, or, at least,
that’s the story she’d tell us. I was the one
who kicked my twin in the womb,
another story I inhaled like the gospel
I’d never been taught but burned to learn,
to fill the hole between the truths,
& everything else. She loved her grandmother,
also named Addie, and that was something
I did believe. I dreamed the stories she told
me into being, miles and miles of green
grass, my mama’s hands held by the soap
they made together, their faces
freckling and reddening in the sun,
just like mine.
