Green: “You know house, don’t complain about ‘n.’ You need thicker skin. Take ‘g,’ for example. A green girl—she wouldn’t complain.”
Then a series of ‘b’-jobs, and ‘p’-jobs, and ‘s’-work that bowled the ‘h’ over. While house slept quietly, ‘z’ rang in her head.
And for the rest of her days misfortune followed her, sentence, language, country, continent. When house traipsed Europe: Liaison, liaison, mon amis, the French words said. In Spanish, ‘h’ suffered mistaken identity. ¿‘Hache’ o ‘ge’ o ‘equis’ o ‘jota,’ ¿cuál es su nombre, ‘h’? The Spanish words said.
So house found a quiet spot in the country, just to the right of the silent period. House. And spent her days sounding her name to herself. And wondering if she’d ever be heard from again, started her autobiography.
“Once, there was a house with no ‘h.’”
5.
Suppose there is a bubble that flutters inside you. Or suppose it builds in the plastic air. Or the plastic that is liquid and luminous yet air. Or suppose in reverse the air plastic. And in its sloshing to-and-fro forms teacups of air unsettling its layers. In the teacups is air air not plastic. And teacups are cool and porcelain as anything that’s cool and porcelain. And suppose bubble—though never a bubble before—porcelain and cool as anything once thrown from a wheel, a fired thing, a red thing before it sits and cools on a rack thing, formed of the sloshing that makes bubbles in the plastic air. And bubble air inside of it, an echo of liquid spun into its well. And the echo of heat as liquid brews in the smile that’s the bottom of the well.
6.
Houses come in two sizes—big and bigger. Since the rich always get richer, there will always be a need for bigger, more gigantic houses. Houses big enough for all the dough they make.
It is not empirically possible to prove the existence of the rich. (So say studies funded by the rich.) Nor possible to prove the existence of the poor. (Cite similar studies.)
7.
There are purple houses in America that make a stink with their neighborhood associations. There are enormous red houses we call ‘barns’ that stand in the country, where farmers stack their feed, and tools, and sometimes chickens—but for nostalgia—no one mentions them. There are houses in the warmer states put together of hay bails and dirt and cement-like fixatives and painted the color of the land and no one, not even the shifty fox, complains. There are houses made of wood or painted to resemble wood in the deep forests. And just last summer when neighbors painted their house ‘Cape Cod Grey,’ and the rest of us snickered, But this is not Cape Cod, and beside the too-doo a gaggle of book-worms made over the spelling of Grey on a paint can, not-one, single, solitary complaint. But in America when there is a purple house, it is sure to make a stink with the neighborhood association. And as sure as it will be a stink, it will also surely become news in the town newspaper whose name has wedded and is wistful for the once, great rivalry of Sun, Star, Gazette, and Intelligencers hurrying to report of the comings and goings of the town. And the paper will re-conceptualize the engagement for a wider audience, naming it, ‘a nasty skirmish,’ and then angle it, ‘stubborn, purple home-owner’ vs. ‘determined, neighborhood association.’ And the local-color piece will play in the Metro section of the Sunday paper people reach for as if reaching for their toast. And still then, it will not be mentioned how street lamps gauze the town over in purple, when the cool, dimming light of August approaches—houses, and sidewalks, the laundry mat windows, and laundry chiming in the windows of the washing machines, and suds purpling. And no one hurries to write this, nor bangs door to door for someone else to witness the phenomena. Nor mentions, however, still, in the dimming light of August, purple cascades even from pens; so somehow—even without volition—purple poems are written, telling of the world awash in plush, August light. And of the purple music box. And stars through the lens of the periscope. And lovers soothing against each other in the purple heat of August, leaving swatches of color on the sheets beneath them. And that, this purple light is a healing force that showers the tired townspeople, the homeowners, and all of the members of the neighborhood association, the farmers and contractors, hay-bailers and seed-handlers, newspaper reporters, and copy editors, managing editors, and publishers, layout operators, and laundry machinists, poets, and all of the readers who live in the town inside of that poem.
No quiero ya no quiero
la sucia sucia sucia luz del día.
lejana infancia paraíso cielo
oh seguro seguro paraíso.
I don’t want anymore don’t want
the dirty foul rancid light of day
distance infancy paradise heaven
oh safe certain paradise.
—Idea Vilariño
MANEJAR, 1–80 NEBRASKA
Con latigo de madera, un joven sin camisa
rechazaba los penachos de pasto de la pradera.
Detras de él un tren cruzaba pararelo sobre la tierra llanera.
El vidrio tranquilizaba todas las heridas altas.
Bajé las ventanas y las brisas se pincharon
a las briznas filosas de nuestro aliento usado
que se habían desenrollado en la cabina del camión.
No tener prisa para contarlo mientras manejaba ella.
Abandonado, el joven volvía al germen en el retrovisor.
Las pistas se caían a plomo hacia un barranco
que se ha secado y el tren seguía hacia el fondo.
Quizá la palabra sentida sería abismo.
DRIVING, 1-80 NEBRASKA
A boy bare-chested with a switch
beat back the plumes of the prairie grasses.
Behind him a train filed parallel over the plain land.
The glass tranquilized any loud wounds.
I rolled down the window and breezes
needled the wooly ends of used-up breath
that had unspooled into the truck cabin.
No hurry to tell the story as she drove.
The boy went to seed in the rearview mirror.
The tracks plummeted into a defunct ravine
and the train followed down the hollow.
Or, was the right word for it chasm.
WITNESS
My cousin Sonny missions with her kids in the Philippines.
In Pittsburgh, Constance and Reyanne come to the door. We’ve met before at another address.
Through the lead-glass window: they straighten their scarves, teeth, when they hear footsteps clanging near the door.
They don’t remember my stream-lined teeth, my globy lips or eyes from all the heads they meet.
My cousin Sonny’s a Witness, too, I tell them. She missions with her kids in the Philippines.
Down Atlantic Avenue, a year before, I said, Come back and meet Faith, the owner. She’s new in town and needs to make more friends.
Today, they ask if I follow faith and I decline, an atheist. And they ring their knuckles—screw fingers around their moldy joints like a nut-cracker’s teeth.
My cousin Jing Jing—Sonny’s sister—a Witness, too, I say as they clang the pages of their good books, fingering for a tooth of conversation.
Constance and Reyanne don’t rush into talking. Mornings, they buzz by the doors like flies.
And I’m patient with them—out of respect for the cousins—while teeming in the hot, Pittsburgh dust I carry in a suitcase from home to home.
Jing Jing is my favorite name, is what I long to tell them. What’s your favorite name? I long to ask.
Once, in Seattle, I was bald and breezes slid easily from my gut. I’d say, Make like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and count me out.
Once, Sonny and Jing came out to the S.F. Airport to see Puring and me as we stretched our good leg out to the Philippines.
They kept a glowy silence about my head as we teetered past the clanging Krishnas.
Love balled through my bare skin. A brilliant passport.
In the P.I., Puring a
nd I visited Uncle Ulpiano—their father—a stroke had left a golden sore in his eye.
A friend of my grandfather’s taught Ulpe to read. For the god’s-sake of this story, we’ll call her Faith.
Constance and Reyanne smile when I say: “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love” then they frown, “Our souls just mush under bootsoles, long to be eaten by grassy teeth.”
Ulpe doesn’t recognize my brilliant head. Thinks I’m the younger brother. My name nonsense.
With the Pacific conquered, Truman took the ones who read and sent the rest packing.
When Constance and Reyanne hit the books again, I want to say, faith and belief, a foggy bathroom mirror, a raincoat on the man who drags a suitcase full of dictionaries door to door.
Today’s forecast, humidity: I heat myself, I heat my hand, I heat the air inside my hand like a handful of warm, glass marbles.
I can’t believe they call me Sister anyway. When they’re just Constance and Reyanne to me, the same as Jing and Sonny.
Their pamphlet charges to my sweat and releases a green sore of ink in my palm.
THE ADORATION AT EL MONTAN MOTOR LODGE
—San Antonio, TX. Reviews not yet available.
A leathery tobacco stain where her knuckle creases.
Limón in the taco grease licked off of lovers’ fingers.
Tonight the sheets will yellow beneath the dim light bulbs.
A yellow kiss. love plagues the Earth.
How water from the marred glass roughens her top lip.
Exhaust the nylon rug kicks up. The pink sink. The mirror above the sink that forces a ripple through her gut. The smile that’s a water-stain on the smoky curtains. A pillow that—for the most part—lovers use for balancing. The cataract bluing the tube inside the ancient TV set. The showers that run all day and swell the hallway with their sweat. The dewy pillow against her face. A plague of love upon her.
For hours the lovers’ feet kick at the woozy nightstand.
Santa Biblia in gold leaf on the good book on the nightstand.
Brown nipples that start to fade as she ages, that metallic pussy smell, how the grain of her cunt toughens around her fingers when she comes, the veneer of as a mouth.
Blood that starts to slough off once her breath has dried it to her lips.
Combing fingers through the red carpet fronds, searching for her glasses.
Side-by-side the blisters raise in the shape of teeth.
WHILE WATCHING DALLAS, MY FILIPINA AUNTIE GROOMS ME FOR WORK AT THE MASSAGE PARLOR
Friday nights, the images
of hot tubs, Manhattans,
and blondes fingering the hair
on Cliff Barnes’ chest tickled
my Auntie Linda until she cried,
Aiiieeeee! Auntie Ning beside her
rolled cotton balls in tubes
she used to dab the cheap nail
polish that pooled between
her cuticle and skin.
Days, Auntie Linda worked
at Hair Cuttery. In her chair,
clients were mortified to hear,
Sagging breasts means sagging hair,
as Linda parted their wet mops
down the middle for effect.
Nights, I painted my nails
Pearlucious. I begged for Ruby Red.
But Linda said, That’s an old,
white ladies color. They leave quarters.
Their husbands leave watches.
Auntie Ning hiked up a pant leg,
and I dug my fingers into her calf.
She writhed and slapped at the thin rug,
tossed over holes in the thinning carpet.
Meanwhile, J.R. tippled scotch.
Close-up, wordlessly, he scolded me
for carving grids in the lotion
I lathered on Ining’s legs.
Ice clinked in J.R.’s glass. Crystal,
it twinkled in the light. He took
a swig and said, If you point
a double barrel shot gun at me,
you better fire both barrels.
Linda worked on Ning with
a chopping motion that prompted
her to tell the story of how she
wanted to karate chop the neck
of gentlemen clients who waited
by her car to ask her out. I was ten.
Even then, I figured she also
meant my father, who teased her
at dinner, You touch dirty old men,
when every morning he tramped
the hallway in a towel, his package
swashbuckling hip to hip.
When I rubbed Linda’s tiring
hands, she said I should work
with her, Saturdays nights,
tips plus ten bucks an hour.
Sue Ellen carried John Ross to the jet.
Back then I wondered, who calls
a child by such an adult name?
The child who, a season later,
is eight years old. After two more,
he turns fourteen. A hiatus and
he returns to Southfork, to learn
to pick flesh and blood
apart just like his father.
SEGUIR
Un pescador
en la cama del río,
un gusano
tan enfriado como
leche en la mano,
ensarta el anzuelo
anillo a través
de los bulbos
de la carne.
Penetrado
se afloja
como una cintilla
que se quita
de la rueda
y se llena
con polvo.
El cielo está gris.
El pescador
coge la caña,
trozo de plomo
con forma de lágrima,
lastra
la línea de seda,
a la vez que hunde
su palma
en el corque
del mango.
Al tirar la línea,
dibuja semicírculos
en el aire,
ese movimiento sutil
como una hoz
y el aire suelta
una soporosa queja
mientras la línea
siega por encima.
La línea vacila,
sobre la expansión
de agua, gira
el cilindro de la trampa
de la línea tan rápido
que el huso chirria
como lo misma
pena de las visagras
de la puerta enojada.
oír el sonido
roto por el projectil
el silencio del agua
antes de buscar
la carnada donde
las pequeñas ondas
se combaten por
el agua más allá.
SEGUIR: TO FOLLOW, KEEP ON, CONTINUE
A fisherman
on a river bed,
a worm
cool as milk
in his hand,
threads his silver
hook through
the bulbs of
the worm’s body.
Pierced
it goes slack
as tape drawn off
a wheel and
sated with dust.
The sky is gray.
The fisherman
grabs his pole,
tear-shaped iron
weights ballast
the fishing line
as he sinks
his palm into
the groove he wears
and wears into
the handle’s cork.
Casting he loops
the line behind him
and swings it
keen as a sickle
and the air lets go
of a sleepy groan
when the line
mows over it.
The line across
the water’s
expanse spins
the barrel of the
fishing line’s trap,
so fast the spindle
moans like an angry
door’s hinges.
Then the fisherman
waits for a plunk
before he searches
for his bait
where the ripples
already gang up
in the water
beyond him.
IN THE TIME OF THE CATERPILLARS
Auntie Ining renders fat from slabs of pork she’s cut into cubes.
At the kitchen table, I render “Scene from the Garden of Gethsemane” in chalk, in the backdrop a greasy staccato.