My holy Sundays were spent skin against temples of white cotton, mixed polyester. Drowsy eyelids at half-mast. Mom never forced me wake. I remain a stranger to the prayers and omens in my mother - my mother’s - tongue. Instead of words spilling out her mouth, "Wake up," she gifted her child the grace to be one and lie still. A little more softly, a little more hush-hush, a little more catch your hours of sleep, con. We have all the time in the world.

That's how I like to imagine the way she thinks.

I sit still in my makeshift altars. The ones we built with Scotch tape, just-in-case supermarket flyers, and shy pauses. Is this enough? I really hope this is enough. <s>It will never be enough.</s> I ask for forgiveness. I think it will always be of ripe persimmons and syllables, mom. Remember when I mistook them for plums instead?

(You don't, because I never knew how to tell you. You don’t, because in front of you, I am always that hazy, yellow townhouse child building train tracks through our California kitchen. Eyes and hands moving more than these lips ever will. Mẹ hiểu con phải không?)

<i>(Was it yellow?)</i>