Australia said “yes” to marriage equality on 15 Nov, 2017
Dear Father,
Who hides in the kitchen, whose name

I carry like an idle onomatopoeia

for small triumph. But whom I don’t love

enough. On the day of our victory,

let’s ask ourselves: what if it is true

that fathers and daughters were lovers

in their past lives? I still remember

the Stephen King book you gave me

when I was 10. I have learned

horror stories and growing up

have only one thing in common.

Winning is difficult in life, as you sat there

imparting useless information

as if they were lip service to survive.

Tears glistened on your face –

oily, like mine, you confessed:

I never knew what it was like

to have a mother.

The sob so shrill it sunders

our catoptric worlds.

I’ve since found power in the feminine,

such as screaming, and practise

widening my too-round eyes.

I began to see ghosts

on my pillow – the mythical

fiery shadows of Phoenix

leaping from a hot pan

to boiling water reliving a past.

In your hand a Chinese fairy tale

some fiction about flying,

in which there is your name:

                              Wai Wing (Great Prosperity).

Your masculinity a carapace –

what are you made of

by the way, when ma bought you

feminine sanitary pads

instead of the blue ones

you need as a man?

You only said your knees hurt

on your way to the post office

to vote No. Now I see,

your porcelain heart

has a leaking hole. I, too,

nearly broke my body

just to savour the line

segment in my flattened world.

That’s why I have your nose, your taste

for bitter tea and the will to flaunt

courage with mild hypochondria.

Out there, they have debated love and

how to be a man or a woman

is next. In my dream, the world

changes in no one’s favour.

I’m playing the piano,

my hand pauses in mid air:

a semibreve. Musical notes

twirl dully in the dark, like

embroidery coming undone –

it’s the crossed stitches of Phoenix,

the most unloved childhood emblem

sutured on my pillowcase.