Why Paint the Back of a Sunflower? 

Issue 7

We are doing well. Our family’s doing fine. 
Despite the alleged business trips. Late nights 
where she watched the driveway, waiting. 
Dark circles beneath layers of foundation. 
We do not speak of such things. 
We do not mention the two wrinkled twenties, 
four dollars, three dimes, two cents 
to carry a wife and child until February, coins 
and crinkled bills counted again and again, 
hoping the calculations proved wrong, 
that providence hid in the leather wallet. 
We are fine. Always fine. 
Despite the burning of incense, joss sticks smoldering, 
we will not mention impassioned prayers to the cross, 
Mecca, the three million elephant gods of the Hindus, 
any deity willing to contain the cancer 
crawling up her chest, choking her plea 
for one more year with her child. 
We do not speak of such things. 
We are a photo in a gilded frame 
above the stairwell, of husband and wife, smiling, 
daughter bundled in her mother's arms. 

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DANIEL OOI,
​A Malaysian-Chinese immigrant, grew up Pentecostal among Buddhist-Taoist relatives. He arrived in Abilene, TX when he was 17. Daniel has worked as a substitute teacher, an adjunct instructor at the college level, and an assistant director of a TRiO program–but often dreams of being a househusband.

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