A Poem from My 15 Year Daughter

He taught me how to swim,
Holding me even though I had big foam sticks
Supporting my treehouse.
Working hard long hours,
those swollen balls of brown
would lighten up
to make me laugh.
He loved me so
and bought me Chinese birthday cake
every year till I discovered the prized ice cream cake,
and abandoned my Asian love.
Cutting my hair,
he promised to turn me into a
Japanese princess.
I mastered ping pong technique with his touch,
bobbing up and down to the rhythm of the orange motion.
Ballroom dancing
I accomplished with
sweeping ease and grace under his lead.
Radiant roses bloomed
with his daily shower.
Green paper poured down,
and I flew on excited wings with him
to France and Germany.
Swell times, sure, but only
because of his courageous path through
the thickening jungle.
From three hundred sheets of stress
and departure from his mainland,
to obtaining too many sheets to count
of success and developing a plot
of hope,
for me to plant my own roots.

Julia Liang