David Anson Lee's poem "DNA / 父 / FATHER / PATTERN" has been paired with a patchwork sheer suit of untreated beige muslin from Thom Browne's breathtaking 2024 collection titled "The Toile as the Source Text." Presenting a "work-in-progress" as a "final work," the deliberately "unfinished" nature of this Thom Browne garment (or "text") echoes the "window" of Lee's poem, which is described as being synonymous with both the word "wound" and the phrase "living seam." Examining both language ("He carried words / that could not survive translation") and cultural displacement ("Not Chinese / Not American"), Lee's poem (like Browne's canvas-like suit) reveals how one's concept of self can be perpetually reconstructed.
— Paul Cunningham, Editor
DNA / 父 / FATHER / PATTERN
My father arrived
with a suitcase of silence.
Inside:
one language.
another language.
the seam between them.
He carried words
that could not survive translation.
So they became:
hands.
Rice.
Repair.
A shirt folded
before leaving home.
Scientists call this:
inheritance.
Tailors call this:
pattern.
The dead call this:
return.
父
(fù)
father.
A character shaped like a person
holding the weight
of another person.
I wear his unfinished garment.
Too large.
Too small.
Never fitting.
Exactly right.
My body is not a border.
Not Chinese.
Not American.
Not before.
Not after.
Only this:
the place
where two impossible fabrics
touch
and become
one wound
one window
one living seam.
David Anson Lee is a physician, scientist, and poet whose work explores the intersections of medicine, vision, technology, memory, and the human body. A board-certified ophthalmologist and professor emeritus of ophthalmology, he has published extensively in scientific literature and now writes poetry centered on medical humanities, artificial intelligence, aging, and transformation. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals including Eclectica Magazine, Magma, The Pharos, Strange Horizons, and others. He lives in Houston, Texas.
DNA / 父 / FATHER / PATTERN
My father arrived
with a suitcase of silence.
Inside:
one language.
another language.
the seam between them.
He carried words
that could not survive translation.
So they became:
hands.
Rice.
Repair.
A shirt folded
before leaving home.
Scientists call this:
inheritance.
Tailors call this:
pattern.
The dead call this:
return.
父
(fù)
father.
A character shaped like a person
holding the weight
of another person.
I wear his unfinished garment.
Too large.
Too small.
Never fitting.
Exactly right.
My body is not a border.
Not Chinese.
Not American.
Not before.
Not after.
Only this:
the place
where two impossible fabrics
touch
and become
one wound
one window
one living seam.
David Anson Lee is a physician, scientist, and poet whose work explores the intersections of medicine, vision, technology, memory, and the human body. A board-certified ophthalmologist and professor emeritus of ophthalmology, he has published extensively in scientific literature and now writes poetry centered on medical humanities, artificial intelligence, aging, and transformation. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals including Eclectica Magazine, Magma, The Pharos, Strange Horizons, and others. He lives in Houston, Texas.
