The Year of Four Decades
The year I turned forty, I discovered thirty-nine anagrams
misspelling my name for each season, written years ago.
Awaken here line. Hearken lain ewe. Healer wake nine.
The year I turned forty, my monthly bleeding lightened
by a teaspoon. The year I turned forty, no one could tell I was
not thirty-nine. The year I turned forty, winter made no change
in my mood. The year I turned forty, as my bleeding lightened,
a girl-angel sat next to me, drawing with her left hand. The year
I turned forty, a girl-angel covered my forehead with her wings
when I woke from nightmares. When I turned forty, a blind woman
said a hummingbird whirled close to her eyes — a blossoming
lemon tree — and flew away: two years, a teaspoon, thirty-nine,
a girl-angel, a bird.
The year I turned forty, I discovered thirty-nine anagrams
misspelling my name for each season, written years ago.
Awaken here line. Hearken lain ewe. Healer wake nine.
The year I turned forty, my monthly bleeding lightened
by a teaspoon. The year I turned forty, no one could tell I was
not thirty-nine. The year I turned forty, winter made no change
in my mood. The year I turned forty, as my bleeding lightened,
a girl-angel sat next to me, drawing with her left hand. The year
I turned forty, a girl-angel covered my forehead with her wings
when I woke from nightmares. When I turned forty, a blind woman
said a hummingbird whirled close to her eyes — a blossoming
lemon tree — and flew away: two years, a teaspoon, thirty-nine,
a girl-angel, a bird.
Karen An-hwei Lee is the author of Phyla of Joy (Tupelo 2012), Ardor (Tupelo 2008) and In Medias Res (Sarabande 2004), winner of the Norma Farber First Book Award. An-hwei Lee also wrote two chapbooks, God’s One Hundred Promises (Swan Scythe 2002) and What the Sea Earns for a Living(Quaci Press 2014). Her book of literary criticism, Anglophone Literatures in the Asian Diaspora: Literary Transnationalism and Translingual Migrations (Cambria 2013), was selected for the Cambria Sinophone World Series. She earned an M.F.A. from Brown University and Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, she serves as Full Professor of English and Chair at a liberal arts college in greater Los Angeles, where she is also a novice harpist. Lee is a voting member of the National Book Critics Circle.