Smells like fall today, good day for shopping. I fill an oyster-shell purse
with one dollar bills and take the 6 train to Chinatown. The children
are bright as melons and their parents look weary from a day of selling
slippers, handbags, and wristwatches. I pass eleven perfume stands,
a bodega of silk kimonos, and a pawn shop before I see her. But when I do,
I am certain she is the one for me, she has the perfection of fruit.

I know when she is older, she will love lemonade, that her hair
will never curl. I scoop her up with one arm and drop the oyster
into her carriage. I walk slow until I reach the corner, then I begin to run.

She doesn’t cry much, and when she does, I kiss her hard, smearing cherry-red
lipstick all over her face and neck. I promise to never make her learn piano
or French, unless she wants to. In ten years, I’ll let her tattoo her hands.
I’ll buy her umbrellas and gold hairpins, and whenever she finally asks me
where it was she came from, I’ll say: You came from an oyster, and you are my pearl.