“To be, in my spare time, / America for my uncle, who wants to be China / for me.”
— Chen Chen, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

“what counts? How does one count the ways / their lives have intertwined with yours?”
— William Ward Butler, Body Counts

I am China for the boy who tells me, on our first date,
I can’t flirt in Mandarin. I am China for the boy who tries
to remember his father’s province. For the boy who wants

to know how to pronounce his grandmother’s name. 
I am America for the boy who mistrusts my accent.
America for the boy who mirrors my accent. I am America

for my primary school best friend, who teaches me how to 
put on my red scarf before morning parade. America for 
my middle school best friend, who shows me how to untie it 

when the teachers turn their backs. I am America for
the boy from Beijing, who kisses me in the Forbidden City. 
I am Shanghai for the boy from Beijing, who insists that

everything in Shanghai is too sweet. I am Shanghai for
the boy from Massachusetts. For the boy from California. 
Shanghai for the girl from California, who wants a queerer 

China. I am Mainland for the boy who wants to leave. For the 
boy who wants to come back. I am Mainland for the boy who
doesn’t believe in protest and Mainland for the boy who marches. 

I am Mainland for the boy who uses Mainland as a punchline. 
I am Asia for the postcolonial seminar. China for the Asian 
American seminar. I am a Chinese childhood for the poetry 

workshop. An American university for my father. A suburban 
Massachusetts front porch for my mother. In America I fall 
sick. I ask the boy to become China for me. He refuses. 

He presses his hand on my back and counts me to sleep. 
He tiptoes to the kitchen and puts on the kettle.