The Colonial Language Is English

Heaven manifests its duality
My consciousness on earth is two-fold
My parents speak with two tongues
My mother's tongue is Toisan
My father's tongue is Cantonese
The colonial language is English
I and thou, she and thee
My mother is of two minds
The village and the family
My mother loves me, I am certain
She molded my happiness in her womb
My mother loves my brother, certainly
His death was not an enigma
Yet, it too had its mystery
I had willed it in my heart
I had condemned him in his crib
When I touched his round, buddha face
Drank in his soft, infant beauty
Cain and Abel had a sister
Her name is Tiny Pearl
Too precious to be included in their story
Her small throat trilled in vain
The Tao of which we speak is not the eternal Tao
The name that we utter is not the eternal name
My mother is me, my father is thee
As we drown in the seepage of Sutter Mill