The Immigrant’s Very Good Daughter

I know my mother loves me. She dressed me
like a doll—glossy black hair side-parted

and clipped. She slid my sausage legs
into white tights with pink ruffles on the seat.

Red Mary Janes. I was a walking Valentine
to this country that she loves, which didn’t

always love her back. I have made my mother
happy. She took me to so many parties

before I was ten. There, I danced on command
in front of her Filipino friends who clapped

for me, their fingers still greasy from trays
and trays of party lumpia. I know my mother

still loves me. I bought a car, a house,
a lawnmower—all without a man. All before

I was thirty. Okay, maybe she was a little worried
that only a little dog would sit in that house

with me—but if she was, she never showed it.
I know my mother loves me: yesterday I showed

her my recent retirement statement and she smiled
and said, “Good, good,” and told me I should

try out for Wheel of Fortune. I know my mother
loves me: I have stayed out of the sun. I wear

wide-brimmed hats. Even so, my face is full
of freckles and she still tells me I could have been

Miss India. Miss Philippines. Miss Universe. If
I was just a little taller. Just a little. My sons

are slathered with sunblock. My husband reveres
me. He eats everything I cook and smiles. But

I have not rolled a single lumpia correctly.
When I fry them, they burst at the seams, the meat

and carrots spilling into the pool of hot oil.
But I know my mother loves me. When I leave

her, she sends me home with frozen lumpia, made
well in advance of my visit, sealed twice in Ziploc,

and tucked in a small cooler. Each end
of the lumpia folded tight and neat, like

her secrets and wishes and hopes
for her daughter to finally, finally be called on

by a game-show host. One with a jaunty name
like Pat or Alex. She’ll see me guess a consonant

or buy a vowel. She’ll see me remember
to answer in the form of a question.