The Woman I Kept to Myself, Page 5

  Another friend said he waited for months

  that turned to years after his father died

  for a sign promised from the afterworld.

  My friend said he would set up little traps:

  if the light turns green . . . if the doorbell rings . . .

  if the leaf falls before the count of five. . . .

  Meanwhile his favorite maple shed its leaves,

  replaced them, lost a branch in a windstorm,

  burned gold—seasonal incarnations galore,

  which my friend missed waiting for his dad’s sign.

  These stories came when I was full of grief

  about my own losses, wondering what,

  if anything, my words could do for those

  broken on the hard edge of the world.

  Vanity, I thought, this is vanity.

  Roll up your sleeves and do something useful!

  But here on paper, I fit piece to piece

  until the roses match, the cracks are sealed,

  the cup fills to the brim, and over the brim.

  Drink, my sad friends, be briefly whole again.

  DEATH DAYS

  It used to be we marked time with birthdays:

  huge childhood parties with wedding-size cakes

  to celebrate that season’s crop of cousins,

  all of us dressed in costumes from countries

  my grandparents had recently visited:

  Mexican sombreros and toreador pants,

  embroidered peasant blouses for the girls,

  Dutch clogs and dirndled dresses with white caps,

  silk saris, togas, grass skirts, Chinese thongs,

  as if to meet the future in disguise.

  But now it’s death that singles out a date.

  May 30th, my grandfather set out,

  nine years after my grandmother who died

  September 5th—I like to think of them

  as on another one of their long trips.

  A conscientious colleague died June 3rd,

  right after turning in her final grades.

  May 24th, March 4th—the dates are piling up.

  My dressy black dress never gathers dust

  with old silk saris, linen caps, Dutch clogs.

  And then the other anniversaries

  of near misses: a childhood friend wears

  a padded top that gives no hint at all

  of what is gone now going on five years.

  Our church’s mascot maneuvers so well

  with her prosthetic leg her mom can quip

  not even a crazed bullet slows her down.

  And every year a day as yet unknown

  which I won’t be here to enjoy goes by,

  which is why now I celebrate each one.

  ALL’S CLEAR

  The blaster at the building site next door

  comes by with the stamped permit: three whistles,

  blast within five minutes; two whistles, within

  two minutes; and finally my favorite,

  one whistle, all’s clear. “Have a good day, ma’am,”

  he says, departing. They call us ma’am,

  these young boys with construction-worker tans,

  whose daddies used to whistle compliments

  at our young counterparts, before the ground

  shifted, and our eternal youth came tumbling down.

  The doctor checks the freckled skin and says,

  nothing to fret about. He makes a map

  of all my markings, a constellation

  not in the sign of Cancer, but to be watched.

  In the waiting room sits a box of knitted hats.

  The sign reads, Help yourself. (I pick out one

  for you, my balding friend.) The little tags,

  handwritten by survivors, give their name

  and last day of treatment—that sweet all’s clear,

  a red light turning green, spring’s daffodils!

  The first of every month, my husband checks

  now one, now another breast, his eyes blank,

  as slowly he palpates the soft tissue.

  I hold my breath in dread of your surprise.

  Thank you, I always tell him when he’s done,

  as if he’d stood on line all day to get

  my permit stamped, All’s clear, for now.—Meanwhile,

  I wait for next door’s blasting to be done,

  the ground to still, the sky to clear of dust,

  for you to call—All’s clear for both of us.

  NOW, WHEN I LOOK AT WOMEN

  Now, when I look at women, I wonder

  if a breast is missing, if a scar marks

  the place like a pirate’s X on a map

  where a lump lay buried. I look at their hair

  cut close to the skull and I wonder if

  the style was chosen for its trendiness

  or if it signifies recovery,

  first shoots after a long, hard winter;

  wildflowers in the woods; dandelions

  on the lawn; a birdfeeder full of birds.

  Looking at women now, I also see

  the ones who didn’t make it, tías, friends,

  their faces surfacing in grocery stores

  and drive-in windows, moms and bank tellers

  whose carts I want to push, whose hands I take

  as they tender deposit slips, at a loss

  what to say: I’m so glad you’re here to spend

  a moment of this autumn day with me—

  while they eye me, wary, wondering

  what social service agency to call.

  Suddenly every girl seems vulnerable:

  their female bodies specifically marked

  with little black spots like the mortal sins

  in my old catechism book, the fear of death

  palpable as I turned the page and read

  about absolution through the sacrament

  of confession. But only the surgeon’s knife

  and radiating beam might save these lives.

  Even so, I can’t help this helpless love

  for every woman’s child, daughter or son.

  AT THE GYN

  Seen from the parking lot, the building seems

  an army barracks, every window lit,

  with now and then a shape in uniform

  casting a shadow as she passes by.

  I’m glad it’s not one of those offices

  on Main Street that pretends to be a house—

  as if your pap smear’s one more household task

  between the vacuuming and dinner prep.

  I don’t want the false comfort of a home

  these days when news is likely to be grim.

  Open the door, a few women look up

  and smile, as if relieved to see it’s me.

  The waiting room’s in total disarray,

  toys from the toy box kids never put back

  when moms were ushered in for their exams;

  end tables strewn with pamphlets dull with facts,

  and oh-too-many women’s magazines

  (most of them missing pages of coupons).

  The bathroom’s stocked with napkins, just in case;

  the seat is down—somebody thought of us!

  Barracks aside, this is a female stop:

  the mess, the changing table, the request

  you pay your bills on time, a tactful sign

  framed with a smiley face: Have a nice day!

  Everyone here except a stray husband

  or pacing boyfriend awaiting the results

  is one of us—as if the world in which

  we come to know our bodies should be kept

  a place apart where we can catch our breath,

  surrender to our lives and to our deaths.

  GRAND BABY

  My husband says, why don’t you write a poem

  about the new baby, you’re the writer

  in the family, birth is a big deal, />
  it deserves a poem, “new life,” etc.

  Put in about her being born in spring,

  on International Women’s Day—

  now there’s a theme. I bet most poets write

  about their kids and grandkids when they’re born.

  You’re always scribbling about the past,

  how about a here-and-now grandbaby?

  Tall order but short notice, honey. I hate

  to tell you but babies don’t need poetry.

  We do, we, intelligent people,

  gaga over the crib, which thankfully

  has a guardrail to keep people like us

  from crawling inside to recite something

  appropriate & unnecessary. Silence

  is the compliment here—stunned and abashed

  and joyous silence, a quiet reply

  to the noisy mysteries of the universe.

  Hello, Naomi, how you doing, girl?

  is the best I can do when I stare down

  at her tiny, elegant hands and dream

  a pen, a little baton, a steering wheel

  in them, trying to match a future life

  with her astonishing & perfect self.

  But I’ve taken her silence as my cue.

  Naomi doesn’t need a word from me.

  I’m just a writer in the family.

  I know real poetry when I see it.

  LIFE LINES

  Words I read years ago keep coming back

  to calm me at the most opportune times.

  Helping my parents pack for their return

  back to their homeland after forty years,

  my sadness lifted, murmuring a line

  from Yeats, That is no country for old men.

  When my niece told me she was marrying

  a young man I wish I thought better of,

  I almost said—but bit my tongue in time—

  When lovely woman stoops to folly.

  As Mom lay dying and I saw the light

  receding from her eyes, the phrase popped up,

  Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

  and I felt comforted as if my grief

  could be contained within that mournful line,

  and yet I mourned the deeper for that line.

  Often I crack and poetry seals the crack,

  I’ve glued many a heartbreak with the phrase,

  After so many deaths, I live and write!

  which sets me up to love and lose again!

  Unlike my Buddhist friends I’ve never found

  solace in silence. Sorry, but I love

  the way words say what can’t be said in words.

  We fall and a brief quatrain breaks our fall.

  A villanelle recalls us to ourselves.

  I’m buoyed by poems that spring upon my lips

  like prayers mothers whisper over cribs.

  The winds of time would carry me away

  but for the words which when my life breaks down

  rise up and clap their hands and louder sing!

  SPRING, AT LAST!

  This is the first spring that I’ve noticed spring.

  Incredible, I know, to miss so much.

  Why did it take so long? Mom and Dad’s deaths,

  a friend’s cancer, a cousin’s accident,

  the Twin Towers, the war on innocents

  (always the ones to pay)—the End seemed near.

  Then, suddenly, a daffodil, a patch

  of crocuses, bird fights at the feeder,

  and back into the intact Towers flew

  stick figures, like a film put in reverse.

  Each morning I wake up and run outdoors

  to check the stingy inching of the grass.

  I holler for my husband to come see.

  “You’re going to be the death of me!” he warns.

  “I thought a hungry bear was after you.

  Calm down. It’s annual. It’s only spring.”

  But like a star’s light, beamed eons ago,

  spring reached me just this year. I’m taking note

  of peepers, pink skies, swatters back in use,

  goldfinches, fiddleheads, forget-me-nots—

  as if life really works in sad reverse:

  when young, my youth got in the way—

  my frizzy hair, my breasts not big enough,

  my grand career that never seemed to start,

  my many lovers who never appeared.

  But now, amazing grace, I see, I see!

  My life is giving me a second chance

  as I take time to savor it at last.

  All that I wasted, overlooked, bypassed

  springs back whichever way I look, or write.

  REGRESO

  Late in his life, Papi forgets himself

  and switches from his broken English

  to his muy eloquente español.

  My husband glances up at me,

  flashing his monolingual SOS,

  What’s he saying? Or talking on the phone

  about his imminent regreso home

  after four decades living in New York,

  he starts to roll his r’s and sails off

  into a stream of Spanish consciousness.

  The family wonders if he should be checked,

  if he’s regressing, if he’s showing signs

  of early Alzheimer’s, as he rattles on

  about his imminent return, ¡Por fin!

  mi regreso a mi tierra. Ya yo estoy

  cansado de traducción.—But I feel glad

  that he is speaking in his native tongue,

  after so many years of struggling

  to bring all of himself into inglés,

  and tell the great adventure of his life.

  Now, he gives up midsentence, pours his sense

  into the deeper cistern of his soul,

  his native tongue—¡La lengua mas bella!

  so he would tell me when in shame I’d beg

  that he speak English with my teenage friends,

  or rather (but I didn’t dare say this)

  that he keep quiet to avoid their scorn.

  Now, as your final regreso draws close,

  cuéntanos, Papi, todo en español,

  all that we lost of you in English.

  IN SPANISH

  Sometimes it touches me more when I hear

  a phrase in Spanish rather than English.

  We’re walking in the campo and a friend

  warns me to steer clear of that thorny bush,

  Esa mata hay que respetarla.

  (That plant is one you have to respect.)

  My old niñera answers my compliment

  that she is looking younger every year,

  Los años no perdonan a nadie.

  (The years don’t forgive anyone, doña!)

  She calls me doña who once ran my world—

  proof of her point that time topples us all,

  but her saying it in Spanish goes deeper

  and stirs the sediment at the bottom

  of my heart, so the feeling is stronger,

  more mixed in with everything else I am,

  swirling through both the thick and thin of me,

  leaving nothing unfeeling which is why

  I’ve been accused of overreacting

  when I change countries and forget myself.

  It’s puzzling then that I write in English,

  as if I have to step back from myself

  to be able to say what I’m feeling—

  the way sometimes we have to get away

  from the place we were born or from someone

  we love in order to know who we are.

  Yet as I write in English I murmur

  the words over in Spanish to be sure

  I’m writing down the truth of what I feel.

  (Que escribo lo que siento de verdad.)

  YOU

  I love how English has a single you,

  no tú, usted, no tr
ying to figure out

  where strangers rank in the hierarchy

  of my respect: Are you a formal

  or familiar you? No asking permission

  or apologizing if I get it wrong.

  I love the true democracy of you.

  The pampered son of the dot-com millionaire

  or the coal miner’s daughter—all are you,

  united in one no-nonsense pronoun.

  Comforting when I write because it means

  I’m leaving no one out, even a line

  intended for an intimate includes

  you, and also you. In this, my Noah’s ark,

  everyone is invited and can board

  in twos or threes or singly—those unborn

  as well as ghostly antepasados

  who used to be usted and now are dust.

  At sea in mystery, we all become

  human cargo down the generations.

  Once you get used to you, all faces seem

  to hold the face you love, each child could be

  the one you never had, each girl the girl

  you used to be or who your mother was.

  You is inclusive like that Beetle ad

  where linebackers kept piling into a car—

  I forget what the point was, but I’d watch

  and understand their yearning to be one.

  Just as I once climbed into a second tongue

  and it made room for me in its pronoun.

  LEAVING ENGLISH

  Before leaving English, I cling to words

  I haven’t paid attention to in years:

  dirndl and trill and sin, until the thought

  of spending weeks without them is too sad

  to think about. Come with me, I invite

  my monolingual husband, so at night

  you can whisper sweet nothings in my ears

  against possession by my native tongue.

  Even if Spanish made me who I was,

  it’s English now that tells who I am.

  You talk like an addict, my husband scolds.

  Language is not a drug! (But I get high

  working a line until I get it right,

  like finding the last puzzle piece or bulb

  that lights up the whole string of Christmas lights!)

  My family claims that I’ve deserted them:

  One thing is learning English, another