Altar by Marilyn Chin I tell her she has outlived her usefulness. I point to the corner where dust gathers, where light has never touched. But there she sits, a thousand years, hands folded, in a tattered armchair, with yesterday’s news, “the Golden Mountain Edition.” The morning sun slants down the broken eaves, shading half of her sallow face. On the upper northwest corner (I‘d consulted a geomancer), a deathtrap shines on the dying bougainvillea. The carcass of a goatmoth hangs upsidedown, hollowed out. The only evidence of her seasonal life is a dash
of shimmery powder, a last cry. She, who was attracted to that bare bulb, who danced around that immigrant dream, will find her end here, this corner, this solemn altar. --- Analysis Marilyn Chin’s “Altar” seems a tongue-in-cheek treatment of the intriguing subject that is human desire in the need to improve one's state, through the theme of immigration and specifically as a transmission of culture.