How could I not praise the Chinese grandmother
rocking her floral print tracksuit? The remixed qipao,
immortal relic, my fashionable elder sleeving herself
with symbols of prosperity. Forget bootlegged luxury,

the “real-fakeness” of her Adidas; she cocoons
in whatever warms her, crowns her whole body
with stitched chrysanthemums, makes a spring field
of herself, calloused gardener who has always known

a head of cabbage’s real value, the cost of famine—
how could I not seed up, having grown by her hands
in squalid apartments, watching Sailor Moon transform,
wanting, in patchwork couture—Winnie the Pooh sweater

and jeans torn—to emerge winged and prosperous. How
could I not give praise to the ways in which we chrysalis?