from No T(h)ere

I want to think pink. Some notes on unfolding: 1. A moan in a red room is womblike.  What is expectant arrives, post-making: the unfolding of this body from mine.  For which and by which I am transparent.  No bloody. 2. A narrative slides, dendrite, branching outwards like an epicanthic fold.                 2a. “Does this child look like your older one?”                                 A1. The fact that I am Asian seems to cause great distress, perhaps if I had not gained so                                 much weight during this pregnancy.  Does this mark the end of white rice?                 3. A prolongation of a fold of the skin, covering both upper angles of the eye: a word often not                 capitalized, usually offensive.                                 A2. In this sense she is not like the other daughter, whose hand I am holding.                                                                                   ~  ~  ~                                 A3. When I was five, I ran with a neighbor-girl into a field of weeds, dandelion seeds                                 occurring as parachutes, breaking off in wind.  We jump the chain link fence into a field                                 of wishes, a kink of wire yanks me back, exposing pink flesh with splashes of blood                                 falling perpendicular to the elbow: pink before blood, not white fold into bone. 4. How can you interrupt an assessment?  When does the empirical become fact?  A lullaby:  a boa constrictor half-hidden between a fallen log and the jungle.  The threshold of the wild beginning at the crook of bare feet, a flash of sun through the denseness of palm fronds: a shimmering of scales seen coiled.  A hiss.                                 A4. Like the other hand I am holding, she bears no resemblance to herself.                 4a. A standard Barbie doll is 11.5 inches tall, giving a height of 5 feet 9 inches at 1/6 scale.                 Barbie’s vital statistics have been estimated at 36 inches (chest), 18 inches (waist) and 33 inches                 (hips).  According to research by the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, she would lack                 the 17 to 22 percent body fat required for a woman to menstruate.                                 A5. You look at your daughter long enough to see what the physician sees.  You watch                                 as his assessment appears and disappears.  This is magic.                                                                                   ~  ~  ~                                 A6. Like cancer, the words unfold; when you breathe you feel sick.  Damaged. 5. These facts culminate into a grunt.  A whimper by something untrained, a mongrel, something you pet. 5a. Bhanu Kapil writes:  Sex is always monstrous.                 A7. She bends to become more compact.  I push towards its burning, until the streetlamps turn the                 sky pink:  to this opening up.