A Pale Arrangement of Hands (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Cathy Song
- First Published: 1983
- Type of Work: Poem
- Genres: Poetry
- Subjects: Mothers, Parents and children, Asian Americans, Hawaii
“A Pale Arrangement of Hands,” also from Picture Bride, begins with the poet sitting at the kitchen table listening to the all-night rain. Seeing her own hands on the table, she remembers her mother's hands, which always seemed nervous “except when they were busy cooking”: “Her hands would assume a certain confidence/ then, as she rubbed and patted butter/ all over a turkey as though/ she were soaping and scrubbing up a baby.” The poet further recalls that her mother used to describe the rain in Hawaii as “liquid sunshine” to her three children. Further...
[The entire page is 638 words long]
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