BEGIN SCENE
The mother’s hands, covered in flour, rolling out the dumpling skins. The mother’s hands, all the way from wherever she is from, here in a kitchen across the ocean, covered in flour. Rolling out the dumpling skins deftly. With just a few swift controlled motions, she turns the dough and pushes the rolling pin away and to the left, then back towards the right. She spoons the filling in—pork and chives, the perfect amount every time—and wraps it up. The dumpling should not be overfilled or it will break open in the boiling water. The dumpling should not be underfilled or it will be unpleasant to eat—the balance will be thrown off. Both indicate a lack of skill.

The bowl of water for pinching the dumplings closed sits between the mother and the child at the kitchen table like the ocean between them. The mother dips her fingers in and so does the child, imitating, learning. For a single moment, both of their fingers wet in their shared sea, the two are close. The mother is teaching and the child is learning. This is how things are supposed to be. For a single moment the child is transported and mother means something much bigger, much bigger, than the child could imagine. Mother means a whole place, a whole country, a country full of love and ancestors and belonging.

The way the mother pinches the dumplings closed is a poem. The way she pinches the dumplings closed is a poem in a language the child does not know. The way she pinches the dumplings closed is a poem like the ones that she used to write in her across-the-ocean language. Her untamed tongue. The way she pinches the dumplings closed is a poem like she would have written if she did not have to come across the ocean to here, or maybe more accurately somewhere in the middle, which is where the child is from, kind of, not all the way, well that’s the question isn’t it.
END SCENE

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