Seventies Hair
In the game room of
the building with white walls,
my father cries
as my cousin sings karaoke, her eyes
on the TV.
The song is about trains
and heartbreak.
The seventies hair of
the singer in the video
makes me laugh:
her eyebrows are
thick, her tears gigantic.
The train’s at the station, but her lover
isn’t there, or she’s missed
the train her lover is on.
I can’t tell because
the lyrics are in a dialect
I never learned.
I probably could’ve if I
lived here and sang
with my cousin, surrounded by
white walls
bedpans
wheels and
nurses.
My father isn’t crying
about the train
or the heartache
nor about the seventies
or the language lost.
He’s lost in how
the last time we all sang
about this silly train
and this silly heartache
my cousin could walk:
no cerebral trauma
swelling of the brain
living within white walls.
The seventies hair on the screen
trembling in the wind
makes me laugh
but the laugh comes out thick,
gigantic.
Like a wail.
Lily Chang is a Taiwanese-Canadian writer, editor, and director/producer in theatre and film based in Tiohtiá:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal. She is a graduate of Concordia University’s MA program in creative writing. Their work has been published by Room Magazine, Frog Hollow Press, HerStry, Dark Helix Press, and ACWW. She is a 2023-2024 Nightwood Innovator, the winner of Infinithéâtre's WoQ 2023 Playwriting Competition, the recipient of FringeMTL 2023's Frankie Award for Most Promising Emerging English Producer, and a 2018 CBC Nonfiction Prize finalist. Their projects have been supported by the CCA, ACF, and Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. For their portfolio, visit lilychang.art.
In "Seventies Hair," during a family visit, a karaoke moment that should be joyful or celebratory is complicated by the memory of how a loved one used to be, prior to a major car accident.