What the Water Keeps
My grandmother washed rice in the same chipped bowl
for forty years, three times always, her palm
circling the grains until the water ran from milk
to almost clear. She never let it run all the way.
That last cloud, she said, is where the taste lives.
I have her bowl now. I do not know the word
she used for it, only the shape of her mouth
making the sound, the way her tongue
touched the back of her teeth and held there.
When I rinse rice I count to three in English
and the kitchen stays quiet in a language
I was supposed to fill.
There is a voicemail I keep but cannot play
past the first three seconds, her voice
saying my name the wrong way,
the way that was actually the right way,
the way no one says it anymore.
The bowl floats when I leave it in the sink too long,
tilts, takes on water through the crack
along its rim, and still it does not sink.
It rides the gray water like something
that has decided not to be finished,
the cloud of starch lifting from its center,
rising, refusing to be poured away.
*
Alexander Poon (he/him) is a poet from Edison, New Jersey. His work explores family history, cultural inheritance, memory, and the quiet distances that language and time can create between generations. His work has appeared in American High School Poets: Winter 2026 and has received recognition from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.
Oooo. I love this little poem. Thanks, Mark, for curating it.
beautifully focused and realized poem–thank you
I love this poem!
What a beautiful generational poem. From what I gather from your bio, you are a young poet, but your wisdom shines like a wise elder.
Great poem! My mother-in-law also taught me to wash rice 3 times.
oh. this poem. the way she still lives through the bowl, through the memory of the shape of her mouth, through the way she speak the name … profound, this poem.