by Selina Li Bi

I thought I contracted amnesia
from the Siamese cat next door.

She and I were drunk on sake
when she licked my wound

clean with her rice paper tongue.
I told her it didn’t matter—

that I was still trying to forget you.

The way the monsoon rains flood
the streets of Makati in Manila;

barefoot children dance
ankle deep in a sea of brown.

The way a woman tries to forget
the scent of her lover as she returns

home to a bed of plucked orchids,
dried tea leaves steeped

in a cracked porcelain pot, unrecognizable
in the palm of her hand.

The way I forget to look in the mirror
and blush, half-naked,

the smell of burning incense
rising from my navel.

About the Author
Selina Li Bi was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and raised in North Dakota. After practicing as a doctor of optometry for many years, she earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Minnesota State University Moorhead. As a second generation Asian American, the dichotomy of cultures in which she grew up in, weaves its way into her work. Her credits include a children’s story based on her father’s childhood during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines published in Cricket. Her fiction has been published in Red Weather and her poetry has appeared in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal and Red Weather.