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白鹭 / White Heron

Hanna Liang

一

Paper cranes only fly when i am with my 妈.

The first time she showed me this, her elbow jerked up like a wing

at my side. She rivaled road rage as she honked:

“白鹭!”

Half-goose, half-woman, behind the wheel. i traced the index finger she aimed

at the sky to glimpse a cabbage white skating figure eights

against the horizon. That day, i learned her paper cranes

could

fly.

二

My Mother Goose doesn’t sing nursery rhymes. She lullabies

弟子规 and 三字经 while molding printer paper like wax in

to wings. Her ballads are about herons who draped damsels over

their shoulders, blotting blood-moons into snow-skin,

sowing black watermelon seeds. 1938 was the year

of their siege; our women have not yet

forgotten.

三

Brothers master crane-folding faster than sisters.

Daughters master clothes-folding faster than sons.

Sisters master face-changing faster than brothers.

Sons master name-changing faster than daughters.

Daughters are told to fold like printer paper.

Fathers teach sons to finger folded white wings.

Mothers tell daughters to flap their wings harder.

Fathers think daughters are fragile things.

四

My mother still hollers:

“白鹭!”

when she spots white herons behind the wheel. Her cranes

have been skewered by her with white string, alternating

paper birds with plastic straws into makeshift wind

chimes flanking my door. Inside our house, her birds

cannot fly. They are my guards, dangling white ingots–

my mother’s well-wishes, her warnings, to me. She says that

she tried to command a thousand cranes in 2006; her army of

unstrung carrier doves never reached East

to her childhood nest. Just like her, they couldn’t fly back

to retrieve her delivery, half-folded.

五 → 吴 / Wu

I have mastered the art of misnaming my mother’s favorite bird:

“白鹿” (white deer),

“白路” (white road),

everything but “白鹭,” egret, or, white heron.

A white deer will run;

a white bird will flee;

her white crane has made a nest of my flesh. I pity

its wings and its wish to fly. My hands trace

her steps,

her creases,

her folds,

to carve my own 白路 with a foreign tongue, with letters taking

flight

from

paper.

一

Paper cranes only fly when i am with my 妈.

The first time she showed me this, her elbow jerked up like a wing

at my side. She rivaled road rage as she honked:

“白鹭!”

Half-goose, half-woman, behind the wheel. i traced the index finger she aimed

at the sky to glimpse a cabbage white skating figure eights

against the horizon. That day, i learned her paper cranes

could

fly.

二

My Mother Goose doesn’t sing nursery rhymes. She lullabies

弟子规 and 三字经 while molding printer paper like wax in

to wings. Her ballads are about herons who draped damsels over

their shoulders, blotting blood-moons into snow-skin,

sowing black watermelon seeds. 1938 was the year

of their siege; our women have not yet

forgotten.

三

Brothers master crane-folding faster than sisters.

Daughters master clothes-folding faster than sons.

Sisters master face-changing faster than brothers.

Sons master name-changing faster than daughters.

Daughters are told to fold like printer paper.

Fathers teach sons to finger folded white wings.

Mothers tell daughters to flap their wings harder.

Fathers think daughters are fragile things.

四

My mother still hollers:

“白鹭!”

when she spots white herons behind the wheel. Her cranes

have been skewered by her with white string, alternating

paper birds with plastic straws into makeshift wind

chimes flanking my door. Inside our house, her birds

cannot fly. They are my guards, dangling white ingots–

my mother’s well-wishes, her warnings, to me. She says that

she tried to command a thousand cranes in 2006; her army of

unstrung carrier doves never reached East

to her childhood nest. Just like her, they couldn’t fly back

to retrieve her delivery, half-folded.

五 → 吴 / Wu

I have mastered the art of misnaming my mother’s favorite bird:

“白鹿” (white deer),

“白路” (white road),

everything but “白鹭,” egret, or, white heron.

A white deer will run;

a white bird will flee;

her white crane has made a nest of my flesh. I pity

its wings and its wish to fly. My hands trace

her steps,

her creases,

her folds,

to carve my own 白路 with a foreign tongue, with letters taking

flight

from

paper.

Hanna Liang is a bit too obsessed with the written word and the ways it relays human thoughts, emotions and sounds. She is a current sophomore studying Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California, and a staff writer for Descent Magazine. Alongside published and forthcoming work in Descent, her writing has appeared previously in Palaver Arts Magazine and BRIO Literary Journal.