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For my mother, 1941–2015
The soul is ambitious
for what is invisible.
JACK GILBERT, REFUSING HEAVEN
Contents
Title Page
Note to Reader
Dedication
Once Barbie Chang Worked
I
Barbie Chang Parks
Barbie Chang’s Father Paid
Barbie Chang Runs
Once Barbie Chang Loved
Barbie Chang Shakes
Barbie Chang Can’t Stop Watching
Mr. Darcy Leans
Is a Windcatcher
The Prognosis Is Poor
Barbie Chang Got Her Hair Done
Mr. Darcy Takes Barbie Chang
Barbie Chang Loves Evites
These Men Can Be Collected
Barbie Chang Has No Intention
Mr. Darcy Grabs
Barbie Chang’s Father Calls
Barbie Chang Waits
II
Dear P.
III
The Doctor Says Hospice
Mr. Darcy Comes Again
Barbie Chang Vows to Quit
Barbie Chang’s Tears
There Are Lungs
Mr. Darcy Grows
Barbie Chang’s Daughter
Then Barbie Chang
Barbie Chang Keeps Watching
Barbie Chang Wants to Be Someone
In the End Elizabeth
Is It Rude for Barbie Chang
Barbie Chang’s Mother Calls
Once a Man Said Everything
Barbie Chang Refuses
In and Out These Men Go
Some Days Barbie Chang
Barbie Chang Should Have Seen
Barbie Chang is Done
Barbie Chang Pokes Through
How Alone Barbie Chang’s Mother
IV
Dear P. There will be a circle
Dear P. Let her let them
Dear P. Someone will love you
Dear P. If you are like me
Dear P. Please forage please do not
Dear P. One night the power
Dear P. Now that my heart
About the Author
Also by Victoria Chang
Acknowledgments
Copyright
Special Thanks
BARBIE CHANG
ONCE BARBIE CHANG WORKED
Once Barbie Chang worked on a
street named Wall
once she sprinkled her yard with
timed water once
she wore lanyards in large rooms
all the chairs
pointed in the direction of one
speaker and a podium
once she stood up at the end to
else stood up and began putting
their hands together
and that started her always wanting
something better
I
BARBIE CHANG PARKS
Barbie Chang parks next to the
Soroptimist Park
to part her heart a hippopotamus
of a heart a potomac
hurt why unearth her high school her
children unearth
everything with their fingers and
plastic shovels
chicken fingers and triangles of
pizza everywhere
the beautiful thin mothers at school
form a perfect circle
the Circle will school her if she lets
them they have
something to say doves come out of
their mouths that
explode into splinters in the sky
Barbie Chang knows
that an outline of a tree can never be
a tree that the opposite
of her fate is to not be born when she
says she wants to be
visible she means she wants to be
invisible she fell in
love with the Circle but she is allergic
to them unnoticed by
them a streak of blue light in a blue
sky she Skypes the
women at school each day only to learn
that she is the last
person on earth the last leaf on the
last tree there are
hints of fingerprints on the window
but no more fingers
BARBIE CHANG’S FATHER PAID
Barbie Chang’s father paid her tuition
by intuition his brain
now shuns all logic the law is thin with
rules about love but
if a person is so edited that they are
unrecognizable can you
still love them is it possible to write an
elegy for someone who
isn’t dead yet what if a name no longer
means what it used
to where does the wind go when it
is not blowing
today Barbie Chang packs up his
clothes again to move him
to a facility to mute him no longer
able to travel to Italy or
the local deli he tells Barbie Chang she
is demented his dementia
is self centered it has no more center
his words have lost
what they are trying to signify she drives
away from his house for
the last time it’s cold outside he stands
at the front door waving
saying that he’s fine that he’s put on
his long distance shirt
BARBIE CHANG RUNS
Barbie Chang runs on a treadmill
pinches her nose to see
what her mother’s breathing feels like
there’s a name for it
pulmonary fibrosis but it is simply
called suffocating
simply called dying die will die the
trouble with being a
mother is that you too must die no
more dice to roll the
last roll was the outcome all board
games must come to
some end because of too much
losing there is always
someone else doing something else
everyone always cares
about someone else other people
caring about something
else is called protesting on the news
protesters come out again
police officers rotating in a line like
a pinwheel there are always
new people dying a man alone on
Everest under twenty
feet of snow who doesn’t know much
doesn’t care about
the protesters there’s always a woman
worrying about other
women wanting to be loved by other
women when Barbie
Chang was younger she thought the
quiets before the storms
would last now she knows the storms
will come in any form at
any time in the quiets she worries
about the Circle in the
storms she thinks nothing about them
and their fables it is
April again the storms have come again
the man under the snow
digs a small circle around his mouth
and takes his last breath
ONCE BARBIE CHANG LOVED
Once Barbie Chang loved Mr. Darcy
who had many
rivals who arrived at her doorstep each
morning he had so
little body fat he never floated to the
surface of the pool
Barbie Chang watched him disappear
like a servant maybe
that’s why she is always thirsty always
looking for someone
else to make her worthy Barthes says
lovers are wedged between two
tenses of the now and the then it’s too early
to say the mothers at
school have ruled her out they are the
future tense the then
the Circle they form each day works
as a ring around a
planet magnetic and genetic if she sticks
her head out the window
as if she is on a train maybe night
will take her head off
BARBIE CHANG SHAKES
Barbie Chang shakes the hand of
another Smith a former
beauty queen who still wins friends
at school sets the
rules for who is cool and who is not
Aristotle says that
desire is a reaching out for the sweet maybe
Barbie Chang reaches
her hand into the center to not
possess but to be
possessed the Smith appears sweet
has nice teeth she is
taken aback that a Chang would be
so strange and arrange
her own handshake without being
asked first they both
gave birth but the Smith would never
again say hello to that
Chang even one named Barbie unless
she was the one performing
her children’s surgery no matter how
likely the Chang was to
change her time zones instantly clone
herself to find a new
home she didn’t yet know that certain
suburban homes were filled
with people who wanted to be alone to
dial certain phones
Barbie Chang’s phone rings again the
doctors are calling again
pretending that they are caring again no
one but Barbie Chang
knows her father might have a tumor
on his thyroid
he used to put on a tie to get promoted
right around the carotid
he still knows his name is Fu but can no
longer tie his own shoes
BARBIE CHANG CAN’T STOP WATCHING
Barbie Chang can’t stop watching
the Ellen Pao trial
while the rest of the world wonders
about a plane crash in
the Alps helping Ellen Pao is not an
option Barbie Chang
opted out but never really severed
ties with the people in
the office she kept quiet because by
speaking she would
become a victim something projected
upon like the canvas
that paint is thrown on she quietly
packed her bag and
pulled it through the narrow door some
say what a whore Ellen
Pao was to fall in love with a man in the
office doesn’t she know
that men like to take off their clothes
extend their tongues
to see whose body it will run on some
thought Ellen Pao was a
cyst in the office made lists in the office
of all the wrong things
someone made a poll about her did she
or didn’t she was she or
wasn’t she always the same binary argument
racism or incompetence is
there a third possibility that when we
have seen something so
many times we no longer recognize it as
injustice our heads
are always only one foot away from
the man’s head in
the other hotel room but we don’t notice
because we can’t see him
around an empty office building dead
birds lie in the grass new
ones each day hit the glass each face
the same expression
forever frozen in its own form like
a stamp
MR. DARCY LEANS
Mr. Darcy leans into Barbie Chang again
weans her from his lean
then leans again his face doesn’t reach
her face but she can feel
its heat soldering her to him his shoulder
lacks flesh but she still
wishes for it when he says cheese she
shows her teeth and
wonders when she will believe in the
idea of white space again
when she hangs a child’s picture of
a bird on the wall
some of the glitter falls off each day
why does love feel
like a slow drip without a puddle a faded
paddle on the beach
that the eye cannot see fading an open
door and the triangle of
light trying to separate sometimes
children hold hands
and spin until one gets so dizzy she
spins out and away from
the group it’s impossible to outline
a beating heart
IS A WINDCATCHER
Is a windcatcher still a windcatcher
if there is no wind
moving it is Barbie Chang still a
woman if there is no