15. the durian seller looked me up & down

the durian seller looked me up & down
你是混血嗎？
until then 
i understood her every word 
but this was a new term to me
混血
mixed blood
i didn't even know the tension in my shoulders until
it fizzled away just then
her eager smile crinkled up the corners of her eyes
acceptance, also foreign to me 
but why is your Chinese so good? I
couldn't even tell
& the limits of my vocabulary doesn't allow me
to muddle my way through a proper answer
so i smile
ever unsure, ever
waiting for someone to take my hand,
saying, "what have you been doing there all this time?
you've belonged here, beside me
all along"

but what is being American if not being
confused?

i am mixed, which is to belong to no place except
inside of myself, inside
of my family, soulmates, partners, 
outside stereotype & simplification,
inside the upward sweep of this durian seller's lips; yet,
i want to tell her, durian is of my father's homeland 
and i have my mother's eyebrows 
i am grasping for things you will understand in me 
but she mistakes my silence for certainty
you look so beautiful, she says. take a discount off 
these fruits

frozen lychee & rice wine w/ sour dried plums. shenzhen, china.