Tiffany Hsieh
I Spy
I can eat six braised eggs in one day. They are prettier than strawberry ice cream. Sometimes I swallow watermelon seeds too and my friend says they’ll grow trees in my belly. I secretly wish she’s right. She lives with her ah-ma who makes her eat goji berries and sends her to Japan every summer. My ah-ma, the one who lives with us, has never been to Japan. She’s always in her room listening to old Taiwanese songs on the radio when really I know she’s spying on us. What’s for dinner. Did Ma use the right soy sauce. How many eggs I ate. After school I hide under the piano in our living room and spy on her from behind the cover. Where she puts her teeth. Is she hiding snacks under the bed. Why her underwear is so big. Everybody says I’m lucky to have double eyelids like hers but they don’t spy what I spy. She snores at night and farts during the day.
Biography
Tiffany Hsieh was born in Taiwan and moved to Canada at the age of fourteen with her parents. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The Malahat Review, Passages North, Poet Lore, Room, Salamander, The Shanghai Literary Review, Sonora Review, and others. She lives in southern Ontario with her husband and their dog.
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