My Ah-Ma is not your superwoman by Jackie Huang (16, China/New York)

My Ah-ma is not your superwoman
she cannot make seconds drop dead in their tracks
yet in her trade with time, we are never compromised
as items floating next to each grain of sand in a hourglass

My Ah-ma is not your superwoman
she cannot surf between soundwaves on sandcastles of anger, hate 
while I drown in my emotions
she swims above on clouds in honey dripping from her golden hair
melting me

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My Ah-ma is not your superwoman
nor the suckling to housework
in which she was yelled at
for not taking the guts out before cooking the fish

My Ah-ma is not your superwoman
her arms are not the powerhouse
her calves do not feed blood
the mitochondria in ten thousand ants told me,
they cannot lift her groceries

My Ah-ma is not your superwoman
her tongue cannot taste the bitter sauce
left by ancestors in the village 
where a dirt hole filled the absence of a toilet

My Ah-ma is not your superwoman
she cannot steal from a stolen childhood
blistering in the silhouette of the oil lamp
carved between each stroke of her pen that the black ink 
traced her future

My Ah-ma is not your superwoman
to pray over the grave funneling fog
spitting under the swallow of a casket
next to her mother burning to ashes

My Ah-ma is not your superwoman
is it better to kiss in married lipstick
than to unspool beauty from solitude
before walking the labyrinth fractured over infidelity?

My Ah-ma is not your superwoman
when will I see her fifty years stop hanging from wrinkle wedded skin
breathe in the science of forgetting
that all memories are long washed away in unlearning

My Ah-ma is not your superwoman
She is my superhero.