From the Archive: Allison Chow (CAROUSEL 17)

Staff/ July 29, 2020/ Poem

ALLISON CHOW

Some Three Hours in the Evening
of August Sixteenth When I Am Nineteen

One of my grandfathers
looks like
a Chinese Dustin Hoffman.
He has gotten
more handsome with age.

When we go out to restaurants
on Saturdays
I open doors for him
because he is decades older
than I am
but more
because my reverence
for him cannot be contained
silently
or only within me.
Really it is my honour
to open doors for him.

Allison Chow was a sophomore at McMaster University at the time of this publication (2005). In the warm months, she returned home to Toronto to work and study more, as she dreamt of one day becoming a surgeon. And also a poet.

Some Three Hours in the Evening…
appeared in CAROUSEL 17 (2005) — buy it here