winter arrives sudden in Beijing, dusting temple roofs with white powder

while you show me how to hold chopsticks properly, laughing when 

dumplings slip from my grip onto the glass table. nǎi nai shakes her head 

but keeps filling my bowl, muttering about stubborn foreign grandchildren

who can't pinch raw dumpling skin without tearing holes. this much feels real

when I dream of China now: my clumsy tongue wrestling with sounds 

that live in the back of my throat, fourth tone dropping like a stone 

while you nod encouragingly, correcting my "nǐ hǎo" for the hundredth time.

bicycle bells ring through narrow alleys where laundry hangs frozen on lines,

red underwear stiff as cardboard, and everything smells like coal smoke, 

sesame oil, and something I can never name—maybe longing, maybe home.

you buy me candied hawthorn from a cart painted bright red, the vendor's

smile gap-toothed as he wraps the skewer in crinkled paper, his fingers 

bright red from winter cold. "Xiè xie," I manage, and his eyes crinkle 

with approval. we sit on concrete steps eating sweetness that makes 

our teeth ache, while pigeons peck at mooncake crumbs around our feet, 

your jacket hood pulled up against the wind that cuts through the hutongs

like a knife, like time, like the distance between now and then. 

music spills from a tea house window, guzheng strings crying sweet songs:

"Ràng wǒ lái jiāng nǐ zhāi xià, sòng gěi bié rén jiā, mò lì huā..." 

I don't always understand the words but feel them settle on the ridges 

of my chest like snow collecting on bare branches, beautiful and temporary.

an old man inside plays mahjong tiles that click like winter rain on concrete.

there's something about music in a language you almost know—how it 

holds you without translation, speaks in the spaces between words. 

you count out crumpled bills at the public market, your voice sharp 

with negotiation while tourists hover nearby with their fanny packs. 

"Zhè ge tài guì le, bù mǎi le!" you threaten to walk away, winter boots 

crunching in the snow, and the woman calls you back, price dropping 

like leaves in autumn. she looks at me through thick, misted glasses, 

asks if I'm your sister, her voice curious as a cat. "Tā shì wǒ de biǎo mèi,"

you explain—cousin visiting from America—and something about the way

you say it makes my throat tight. temporary, always temporary, even when

everything feels permanent as the Great Wall stretching across frozen

mountains, even when nǎi nai teaches me to fold wontons with my clumsy

fingers and you steal sips from my ginger tea. 

But permanence is just another word for things we haven't lost yet. 

I wonder if you think of me when it snows there now, if the flakes still look like

petals or if that was just my foreign eyes making poetry from homesickness. snow

fell the morning I left, coating the courtyard where we'd played cards until midnight,

arguing over rules in two languages. you pressed a small jade bracelet into my palm,

still warm from your wrist, the stone smooth as river rocks. the taxi driver loaded my

suitcase while you stood in your doorway, breath unfurling like silk in the cold air,

hands stuffed deep in your pockets. Beijing disappeared behind me street by street,

vendors setting up breakfast stalls in the gray dawn. somewhere over the Pacific, I

closed my eyes & dreamed myself back to narrow hutong walls pressing in tightly,

then woke to California highways stretching wide beneath eucalyptus trees, and

understood how some distances can't be measured in miles or years, only in the

weight of small jade stones.