Lucky Rice by Ellen Austin-Li

Lucky Rice

Just the three of us on the Midway.
Late August at the New York State Fair,
my brother Carl & Barb & me
& the sun blazing & the barker calling us
into the tents to see the bearded lady
& the World’s Smallest Man. Way back,
before Carl & Barb had kids & I was single.
Flash again & we’re riding the Twizzler,
smashed together in the twirling car, metal
arms groaning with the threat of letting go
the faster we spun. The centrifugal force
& Carl’s mouth a perfect “O” & Barb’s face
bleached flour, her eyes squeezed shut, tears
coursing my cheeks as I laughed & cried
at the same time. Afterward, we walked
on wonky legs to the Dairy Building, & collected
little plastic red-hearted “I LOVE NY” cups
as we pounded free samples: chocolate, strawberry, white.
& me shouting: This has to be the best day of my life!
Somewhere on the way out, we found that stall
with the guy hawking Lucky Rice. You could order
your name etched on a single grain, the artist
then dropping the piece into a tiny ampule of water
threaded on a red satin cord. A necklace of sorts.
Carl returned years later—a carny rat,
he calls himself—to search for that seller,
then ordered my wedding present.
I can’t wait for you to open your gift, he said,
on the lead-up to the day. Back then,
I wish I had been more grateful when I looked
inside. Now it hangs on a shepherd’s hook floor lamp
next to the Chinese lantern in my bedroom. See
the husband’s initials with mine, enshrined on a grain
of lucky rice? The letters amplified by the liquid.
Me & Jolly, the man from Taiwan I married.

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Ellen Austin-Li’s first full-length collection, Incidental Pollen—a 2023 Trio Award finalist, 2024 Wisconsin Poetry Series semi-finalist, and runner-up to the 2023 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize—is forthcoming from Madville Publishing. Finishing Line Press published her two chapbooks, Firefly (2019) and Lockdown: Scenes From Early in the Pandemic (2021). Her work appears in Artemis, Thimble Literary, The Maine Review, Salamander, Lily Poetry Review, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. She’s a Best of the Net nominee and holds an MFA in poetry from the Solstice Low-Residency Program. Ellen co-founded the monthly reading series Poetry Night at Sitwell’s, in Cincinnati, where she lives.