上海 /ˈSHaNGˌhī/ noun [home] : wet heat of my grandparents’ house / I squirm in a baggy gray T-shirt / grandma tugs over my bare chest / eyes averted / fabric sticky with disapproval / we eat watermelon from the chipped porcelain bowls / tinted with faded blue brushstrokes / a trail of red running down our wrists / summer in Shanghai / memory, sweet and slightly bitter / we lick it clean verb [to abduct] : the city swells / asphalt shimmers like oil in a wok / a sleazy middle-aged man / crooning 妹妹 mèimei 妹妹 mèimei / a silent litany of names / I wish I did not understand / I am wearing a white tank top / that he peels with his eyes / I carry this gaze like a film on my skin / forget how girls here are pristine porcelains / the white tank top clinging to a body / no longer mine / storefront reflections warp my silhouette / sunburnt and shame-pink noun [home] : at dinner / a mixture of oil & water / Mandarin, English & Shanghainese sloshing / churning in my stomach / I fumble to chopstick the slippery curls of the tones / the pitches, yin or yang / grandparents shake their heads / uncles and aunts laugh at me & call me 洋泾浜 / mongrel tongue / bastard syllables butchered by a borrowed mouth / I smile, all teeth / it’s a trick I learned in America / the delicate-boned fish almost chokes me verb [to abduct] : pulled into a foreign world / I traded my roots for approval / flayed the soft skin my mother gave me into burning tans / sliced my tongue into a new accent, bleeding / polish until I passed the inspection / but nothing / not even the soreness from pretending / could scrub out the ache of not belonging / drugged with memory / I return to familiar streets in a feverish dream / look both ways too many times / walk too fast / or too slow / the air is complicit / wraps around me like a silk 旗袍 qípáo / stitched too tight / & still I look back / still I say home? noun [home] : what people don’t tell you / about leaving / is that the leaving never leaves you / the rasping cicadas for example / the low rumble of dialects / the elm table under a churning ceiling fan & the blinking pale lights / a mosquito lands on my shoulder / leaving a trail of hickeys / I let it drink / maybe I miss the sting / of a version of myself / I can’t return to / it takes me a few tries before I slap it dead / its crushed body leaves a little red smear / just above my heart. About the Author Yuhan Wu is a writer from Shanghai and New York. Her works have been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers and the New York Times.