Burnt Offerings

A collection of poems by a Chinese-American from California. In Thoreau, he writes: "My father and I have no place to go. / His wife will not let us in the house / afraid of catching AIDS. She thinks / sleeping with men is more than a sin, / my father says, as we sit on the curb / in front of someone else's house. / Sixty-four years have made my father impotent. Silver roots, faded black / dye mottling his hair make him look / almost comical, as if his shame / belonged to me."