Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our

Helen Cho
See-Saw
“Back home,” my mother’s favorite
opener, “in the old days,
girls were not allowed to go
outside the family compound.”
“What about boys?” She ignores me,
peeling an endless scarlet ribbon from an apple.
“Such thick, high walls.”
She slices. We picture it.
My sister sees Rapunzel.
I see Sing Sing. My father sees
Goldie Hawn dancing in a bikini
on Laugh-In.
Handing us crescents
of skinned fruit, she’d laugh,
“Girls jumped up high on see-saws
just to glimpse the outside world.”
Black braids saluting kimchi pots
perched on heavy, stone walls.
Full silk skirts and muslin slips
filling up with free air.
Now she prefers a gated community,
sleeps alone in father’s track suit,
the one she wouldn’t let him wear.
“Too good for every day.”
28 ◆ Crab Orchard Review