So I wait on Angel Island,
this island of immortals.
The grass is dry and golden,
waves scour the headlands,
and the sea churns around me.
The children now a year older,
a year beyond their father,
another year without me.
Each day we knit in silence,
socks for the children,
hats for the parents,
and our words swirl in the sea.

A brush and a bottle of ink.
I took them when he died.
He loved to write.
What would he say if he were me?

I open the bottle.

I dip in the brush.

I write on the walls.

I tell the story of a widow
                alone in a prison at sea.
I tell the story of long nights
                wanting my children with me.
I imagine him in heaven,
I write to forget the tedium,
and maybe one day you’ll remember me.

Teow Lim Goh is the author of Islanders (Conundrum Press, 2016), a volume of poems on the history of Chinese exclusion at the Angel Island Immigration Station. Her work has been featured in Tin House, Catapult, PBS NewsHour, Colorado Public Radio, and The New Yorker. She lives in Denver.