Skip to main content
  • 25 Lines or Fewer

I Once Was a Child

By Victoria Chang

I once was a child am a child am someone's child
            not my mother's not my father's the boss
      gave us special treatment treatment for something
                  special a lollipop or a sticker glitter from the

toy box the better we did the better the plastic prize made
            in China one year everyone got a spinning top
      one year everyone got a tap on their shoulders
                  one year everyone was fired everyone

fired but me one year we all lost our words one year
            my father lost his words to a stroke
      a stroke of bad luck stuck his words
                  used to be so worldly his words fired

him let him go without notice can they do that
            can she do that yes she can in this land she can
      once we sang songs around a piano this land is your land
                  this land is my land in this land someone always

owns the land in this land someone who owns
            the land owns the buildings on the land owns
      the people in the buildings unless an earthquake
                  sucks the land in like a long noodle

Victoria Chang, "I Once Was a Child" from The Boss. Copyright © 2013 by Victoria Chang.  Reprinted by permission of McSweeney’s Publishing.

Poet Bio

Victoria Chang’s most recent book is Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief (Milkweed Editions, 2021). She is a core faculty member at Antioch University’s Low-Residency MFA Program and lives in Los Angeles, California.

See More By This Poet

More Poems About Living

A Wyandot Cradle Song

By Bertrand N. O. Walker

Hush thee and sleep, little one, 
     The feathers on thy board sway to and fro; 
The shadows reach far downward in the water 
     The great old owl is waking, day will go. 

Rest thee and fear not, little one, 
     Flitting fireflies come to light you on your way 
To the fair land of dreams, while in the grasses 
     The happy cricket chirps his merry lay. 

Tsa-du-meh watches always o’er her little one, 
     The great owl cannot harm you, slumber on 
’Till the pale light comes shooting from the eastward, 
     And the twitter of the birds says night has gone.

  • Living
  • The Mind

Whose Mouth Do I Speak With

By Suzanne S. Rancourt

I can remember my father bringing home spruce gum.
He worked in the woods and filled his pockets
with golden chunks of pitch.
For his children
he provided this special sacrament
and we’d gather at this feet, around his legs,
bumping his lunchbox, and his empty thermos rattled inside.
Our skin would stick to Daddy's gluey clothing
and we’d smell like Mumma's Pine Sol.
We had no money for store bought gum
but that’s all right.
The spruce gum
was so close to chewing amber
as though in our mouths we held the eyes of Coyote
and how many other children had fathers
that placed on their innocent, anxious tongue
the blood of tree?

  • Nature
  • Living
  • Relationships
Browse Poems About Living