DOMINION OF CANADA
DEPARTMENT OF IMMIGRATION AND COLONIZATION
CHINESE IMMIGRATION SERVICE
No.….……..
……………This is to certify that…………………………………………………………………………………………….,
whose photograph is attached hereto, has
registered as required by Section 18 of the
Chinese Immigration Act, Chapter 38,
13 – 14 George V.
Dated at……………………………………………
this…………..day of……………………192…….
…………………………………………………….
Controller of Chinese Immigration.
This certificate does not establish legal status in Canada.
I am a haunting
they inhaled like saltwater,
emptied through their tongues
into a census of lungs
……………………………….
This land is made of pearls: a million jewels promised to be falling like a summer typhoon
someplace past my fingers and tomorrow
……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
My body is written inside each
tall pine that I collect in passing,
each low mountain holds the entire
story of my shadow when it pulls
and shrinks against their immemorial
physiques. I will learn to love my
shadow as the moon in all of its
phases if I meet it again. Of all
the bodies, only the crows
are the same.
I am only the space between oceans, a breath as light
…………………………………………………………..
as light can you gather me into your hands again
……… …………………………………………..
like some small red berries and remember my name
…………………………………………………………..
……………as if we do not watch opposite evenings turn into sunlight?
Jeremy Chu is a Filipino-Chinese poet born and raised on the unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories known as Vancouver, B.C. His writing appears in AAWW’s The Margins, Ricepaper Magazine, CV2, The Portland Review and more.