My Mother’s Bra, and: Building My Room
- My Mother’s Bra, and: Building My Room
My Mother’s Bra
Limp, coarse, and unpadded, my mother worethe same bra for years; years I watched it fade,white cotton lace stained cream gray in a framethat refused to fold. You never bought more.
The first time I slipped it on I was eight.I burst into the kitchen, mischievousas I was, and your face curled in disgust.You yelled. I watched my breasts evaporate.
Last week I bought my first bra. Clearance, black,and doubled padded: an extra-large bandfor a girl with a ribcage built like a man.My lips (though we don’t talk) are yours, thick,
thicker even. How could you detest me?Look at us. Look. Us together, sexy. [End Page 8]
Building My Room
Carving my room from his own, my fathertook weeks off work, stayed home to seal a homefor me, at sixteen, my first room. The utterfreedom born in locking my door, at homeunseen, I sang, danced, shook my ass, sputteringlovely diva bothered by no one.
My father though, it was my father, hisspear-handling devotion, his bodysquat low in all saxicolous, softshouldered joy—fearful love, estranged, shitty
love, what did I know at sixteen—the year,that summer I first watched gay porn, nights spentbehind my shut door, then my grandmotherdied; mom in her bed she wept, father dreaming. [End Page 9]
Born in Macau, Wo Chan is a recent graduate of the University of Virginia. A Kundiman fellow, a sonneteer, and an aspiring drag queen, he lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he plans to make friends and develop his writing before pursuing an MFA.
