Ultimatum
If I forget one character a day,
I will have forgotten Chinese
by the end of 2042.
Sooner or later I will forget
my quarrel with my father,
I will forget if
I ever wrote to you.
And the new language
I will have acquired
will not be the same
as the one that bit me.
____________________
Motherlands
Weijia Pan
Milkweed Editions
2023
