Zipperheads blues

Slanted eyes and yellow skins
Black mop of hair
Straight down our back
Flat forehead that slants backward
Eyebrows like black downs
On expressionless face
That is us, Asians

We are what we were made to be
Living in lands with terraced hills
To cup water from the skies
To flood our paddy fields
When mud is churned so buttery
We plant the green seedlings
Of what would feed our families

Yellow skins burnt to brown
Black hair turn to white
Eyes of raven turning grey
Looking up at planes passing by
Usurping the highways of birds
Displacing clouds in the sky
Below we toil on for our livelihood

Music to sooth the tired mind
And the tired body more
Flutes and lyres of bamboo
blown from lungs
plucked by nimble fingers
Melodies of tranquillity
We serenade the evening

We do not fly through the air
On magical iron birds
To lay eggs in the sky
That explodes below
Leaving parents children-less
And children parent-less
Husbands-wifeless and wives-husbandless

We are just zipperheads
Or so some people say
we invite not and not invite
Nor desire to plant a stake
On the green land across the river
Or the island in the stream
We just are.


*Zipperheads is a racial slur for Asians, coined during the Vietnam War*.