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Row

from China Cowboy

After they find La La’s body her mother dreams that she is washing La La’s bloody George V school uniform in a cement sink supported by La La’s legs, boots-on. She is able to get the stains out and she puts the uniform on the line outside the kitchen window to dry. It never dries. She tells Uncle Daddy about this dream and he says, you were a good mother. When she stops having that dream she dreams that La La comes home eyes drilled singing into her microphone the way she always did sitting on a turned-over plastic pail she drums. When she wakes up she has La La’s microphone in her vagina. She knows it is there. She pushes. But the mic is so deep inside her it can’t come to a surface. It’s a ship stuck under, she explains, you were a good mother.

About the Author

Kim Gek Lin Short’s work has been published or is forthcoming in No Tell Motel, 42Opus, Drunken Boat, and other places. Her full-length collection, The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits, is forthcoming from Tarpaulin Sky Press, and her chapbook, The Residents, was released from dancing girl press in late 2008.