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Barbie Chang

Page 4

by Victoria Chang


  healthier have better

  breath and time and rhyme with each

  other when they speak

  some of them pretend to be wealthy

  if they pretend then

  why does she want a new house bigger

  than theirs frost still

  covers her old windows winter still

  comes with its lows

  even the snow is the same color each

  year never worse never

  better sometimes powder sometimes

  wetter sometimes earlier

  but always still in power no elections

  to topple the leaders snow

  does not fall it is thrown down at the

  people for protesting used

  to punish the people by making us

  dig ourselves out

  MR. DARCY GROWS

  Mr. Darcy grows in Barbie Chang

  like a deficit she

  requires a radioactive suit three

  thousand thistles

  come down thoughts of him attack

  her like a shower

  once Sylvia ran outside to chase a boy

  who didn’t stop to

  visit her all the faces in the street

  looked rigid except

  for his what if we throw a rope up to

  Heaven and nothing

  pulls back we are always on one side

  or the other a balloon

  is waiting to be shaped into a dog or

  it has just fallen out

  of shape there’s always a vibrating

  diving board that

  means we can’t tell if he is coming

  or has just left

  BARBIE CHANG’S DAUGHTER

  Barbie Chang’s daughter befriends the

  new girl at school but

  before they can form a bond the new girl’s

  mom tells Barbie Chang

  that her own daughter should not tie

  herself down too fast and

  in one week the new girl walks past

  Barbie Chang’s daughter

  no longer talks to her the mother works

  hard to send cards to

  the Circle one by one she stars their names

  because they are free

  to star names free to have stars next to

  their names Barbie Chang

  can no longer play dead because she

  must be seen to play dead

  she realizes she is not what others name

  her would we name a

  deer something else if it could see the

  ocean would the deer

  even name itself a deer if we’ve never

  seen a deer does it mean

  it doesn’t exist if Barbie Chang perches

  on a hill with binoculars

  waiting for deer and sees someone else

  looking for deer but

  watching her instead does that mean she

  exists or that she’s a deer

  THEN BARBIE CHANG

  Then Barbie Chang and Mr. Darcy

  are in the backseat

  of a car kissing not the light kind

  but one where their

  hands are on each other’s cheeks

  holding each other’s

  heads as if they will fall off why does

  so much love come at

  the beginning then disappear then

  once again at the

  moment before death why can’t the

  same kind exist in

  between in the breaths in the afternoon

  in the sitting room

  little girls dress like princesses one pink

  one blue one yellow they

  wear plastic heels because they still think

  they will never fall

  BARBIE CHANG KEEPS WATCHING

  Barbie Chang keeps watching

  the Ellen Pao trial

  wants her to win thinks she is right

  thinks she should fight

  thinks she is wrong thinks she should

  step down Barbie Chang

  remembers her own long days in a

  cubicle with Rob Meyer

  mitering his edges talking about his

  dates with Asian women

  the ones who made it like Eileen never

  complained smart ones

  didn’t want to work at Walmart switched

  off the office lights each

  night Barbie Chang like Ellen Pao kept

  good records never wore

  corduroys to work pretended she hated

  recreation with other

  Asians she can’t help but think that

  Ellen Pao is not pretty

  is petty is not good to powwow with

  probably doesn’t own

  UGG boots if Barbie Chang were her boss

  she might have also booted

  her out of the office full of lies because

  of her small fisted eyes

  BARBIE CHANG WANTS TO BE SOMEONE

  Barbie Chang wants to be someone

  special to no longer

  have wet hair to no longer be spectral

  to be a spectacle Barbie

  Chang wants to befriend the Academy

  which is the Circle

  wants to eat meat with the Academy

  wants to share with the

  cads who think there is a door to the

  Academy wants the key to

  the Academy door wants to give grants

  and awards for words

  but she never knew that life was about

  unraveling not raveling

  that a tear is only a tear after it has

  fallen her parents never

  called in favors never knew there was an

  Academy never learned

  alchemy Barbie Chang wants to forgive

  the Academy for its

  cattiness wants to hate the Academy

  and its Circle and their

  certainty each year she buys climbing

  shoes to go up the tree

  she tries but can’t climb then sells them

  on Craigslist she gets a

  new pair each year on her wish list but

  can’t get past the first five

  feet she stays on the street rolls herself

  flat so she can become

  the street feel the bare feet of people

  pressing her deeper into

  the earth there are aspirations of worth

  everywhere a stipple of

  ants around the cement crack frozen

  from bug spray as if

  they had meant to take the shape

  of an iris

  IN THE END ELIZABETH

  In the end Elizabeth just wanted the

  house and a horse not

  much more what if Mr. Darcy didn’t

  own the house or

  worse not even a horse how do we

  separate the things

  from a man the man from the things

  is a man still the same

  without his reins here it rains every

  fifteen minutes it

  would be foolish to marry a man

  without an umbrella

  did Cinderella really love the prince or

  just the prints on the

  curtains in the ballroom once Barbie

  Chang went window

  shopping but didn’t want a window

  when do you know it’s

  time to get a new man one who can win

  more things at the fair

  Barbie Chang already has four stuffed

  pandas from the fair she

  won fair and square is it time to be less

  square to wear something

  more revealing in North and South she

  does the dealing gives him

  the money but she falls in love with him

  when he has the money

  when he is still ruling
if the water is

  running in the other

  room is it wrong for her to not want

  to chase it because she

  wants to taste it when she waves to

  a man she loves what

  happens when another man with a lot

  more bags waves back

  IS IT RUDE FOR BARBIE CHANG

  Is it rude for Barbie Chang to tell men

  she doesn’t love them

  just the idea of them what if we don’t

  even love living but just

  the idea of it pictures always look

  lovely but it was an

  ugly day if women were actually paid

  the same as men would

  we all just pass on the highest bidder

  who says it’s a privilege

  to be romantic romance with its antics

  and its time limits like the

  nut that never tells us or other nuts

  when it will let go

  we stand under the tree ready to

  collect them with our

  arms wide open as in waltzing who

  authored the word love

  does anyone know the author’s original

  intent does it matter

  that no one knows exactly what it means

  does it matter that it

  might signify everything what if we never

  needed a word for it

  what if it is shapeless and composed

  of gestures if we name

  the thing love it doesn’t mean it

  will last a nut does its

  best to last but at some point just falls

  like all the others before it

  BARBIE CHANG’S MOTHER CALLS

  Barbie Chang’s mother calls her to

  tell her about the

  oxygen machine that outfoxes her

  father he can’t figure

  out how to turn it on there’s a whole

  generation of people

  who care about deer porn not form her

  dog only cares about the

  deer horn she gave him yesterday Barbie

  Chang’s father who bothers

  with everyone’s business doesn’t know

  what Bisquick is someone

  wrote a book of poems about Kanye

  West there are still

  old poets looking for the best new young

  poets who are all hornets

  around the same old nest Barbie Chang

  knows she lives in an

  America that most people don’t care

  about on most days

  she can’t distinguish between being a

  token and racism she

  either feels like a token or is experiencing

  racism a token needs to be

  acted upon by a subject but the same is

  true of racism does that

  mean her whole life is an object as a

  shadow of someone

  else on some days she has feeling in

  her lungs tries her

  mother’s oxygen machine the O2 owes

  her nothing it goes

  through her body breathing for a

  shadow is just a hobby

  ONCE A MAN SAID EVERYTHING

  Once a man said everything Barbie

  Chang wanted to hear

  except she is deaf sometimes she

  wonders about the

  depth of her love for others or is she

  simply diving to eat

  better although she is deaf she hears

  there are oysters at the

  bottom she can’t get them because

  once she has applied

  sunscreen on her children her hands

  are greasy her palms

  are pale from trying to wipe out desire

  what if everything on

  the bottom is really rotten and our ends

  are already written

  what if there are no verbs just nouns

  what if saying something

  makes it true what if becoming a

  witness instead of a

  victim were as simple as words a wrist

  can’t hold much

  weight the man hanging out of the tower

  was forced out by the

  smoke or made a choice to exit the

  window he held on to

  a rope until his hands slipped if he could

  orient himself headfirst

  we could say he wasn’t falling but

  actually diving

  BARBIE CHANG REFUSES

  Barbie Chang refuses to start her

  own Circle refuses

  to wear a girdle would she think

  about the Circle in

  the last eight minutes before the

  plane crashed into

  the mountains there are thousands

  of miles between the

  land and the sky between the words

  to love and loved there are

  little boats in the brain that can row

  nowhere Barbie Chang

  should not mind about all her kind

  whether she is pretty or

  skinny enough loved enough once in

  Yosemite she stared for

  hours at two giant sequoias fused

  together at the base but

  separate high above the plaque said they

  must be in love she knew it

  wasn’t true that they were really two

  trees trying to leave

  IN AND OUT THESE MEN GO

  In and out these men go in Barbie

  Chang’s life and run

  her life too many run ins and starings

  how do they see her

  lies so clearly then they disappear it

  might be months before

  she sees them again once she saw one

  every day from afar

  but then he moved now she is only

  moved by movies the

  in and out the losing under the frozen

  river there are still things

  moving when did her footprints stack up

 

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