boiled ginger root

is an invitation to numb tongues and sore language. you scrape rumpled skin until you reveal pale, golden flesh. boiled ginger root sticks to the bottom of the pot like long tones and vowels, sludged and mushy in the mouth. sprinkle in a little salt and you are set for a bitter childhood memory. a grainy concoction that soothes the throat and cures all sickness. as a child, you believed in everything. do you remember when spelling your name felt like war? or when told to italicize puj because that's a foreign word — you ended up italicizing the entire paper because your grandmother was the entire story. you start to wonder if maybe she lingered a little too long on the earth, dirt beneath her nails, roots sifting through america. can you taste it? the dreams she planted? taste the kick of spice that scorches the nostrils but quiets the soul? it floods the room in typhoons. you have started to feel the raw edge of your tongue like a scythe in your mouth. you cleave chunks of hmong into clunky sentences. you are losing a language your puj sang songs to, the repeated phrase kuv hlub koj faded into small steamy kitchens. you take a sip of ginger root hoping it heals the cuts and wounds of a language that still slices your tongue but simmers in your heart. boiled long enough, you hope the golden flesh will soften bronze but it never does.