the summer (2021) i learned what gold means

1. it was the month my father left
   and my mother learned how to laugh again
   
   i sat down for lunch in the same
   construed table with trinkets
   
   collected over years as she and i
   pulled the afternoon apart with a fork
   
   she always wore a gold bracelet
   dulled by humid air that hung heavy
   but you’re supposed to have two
   
   it was the first jewellery my father bought
   and he said he would buy her another one
   when he had the money again
   
   the years went by, their marriage fell apart
   she has not taken it off since 2001
   
2. two months earlier she would show me
   her jewellery box, organised, neatly placed, picked apart
   
   she said this is all i ever owned, and she picked one up
   placed it on my hand and said
   this one’s for your wife, this for your brother’s
   
   this one for turham’s, he’s like my son too
   she said, this is all i ever owned -
   i wonder if it would be different if i had daughters instead
   
   it is a strange feeling to see your parent as a person
   vulnerable, and utterly helpless - a child unburdened
   
   i don’t know what it was but i cried in the kitchen sink that day
   
3. i was six and it was eid
   she complained that she was out of money
   i took whatever i got that day and put it in her purse
   
   she never knew it was me while i glanced
   as i made a paradise out of lego bricks
   and spoonfuls of powdered milk
   underneath the kitchen sink

romeo told me in his twenties all his poems were just angry
i think, we forget things if we have nobody to tell them to

“See the gold metal I can now wear. I gave birth to your brothers and then your father gave me these two bracelets. Then I had you. And every few years, when I have a little extra money, I buy another bracelet. I know what I’m worth. They’re always twenty-four carats, all genuine.”

— Amy Tan