My mother was born in the days before the 228 Massacre. She never spoke directly of it during my childhood. When my own daughter was born, I started a series of poems under the working title “Scenes from History.” In this poem, I imagine my grandmother on the evening of February 27, 1947.

like most other evenings

she was nursing her two-week-old daughter

feeding her toddler son

her belly still bound tight after birth

 

when a neighbor came in to say

 

riots

a woman, pistol-whipped for selling untaxed cigarettes

a passerby who came to her aid, killed

 

don’t go out if you don’t have to

 

the new baby slept through until daybreak

 

what silence

 

2002

Woodcut “The Terrible Inspection” by Rong-zan Huang Jun Li (Rong-zan Huang) (1916-1952)