Palabras in Each Fist, Page 2

  Driving home, my parents exchanged phrases

  in the other language. Mom in a low voice:

  “She's tired. By the time”

  what is that word?

  “she” something “asleep.” And Father:

  "Tonight I” what was he saying? “Tonight”

  something about music, airplanes.

  “Tonight she” oh, no “really my daughter.”

  *

  Mi Hija, You'll Love This

  Three summers of lawn mowing to bring me,

  his American daughter, to this spot:

  a cobbled street banked by trinket sellers, packed

  with woven huipiles loaded on cocoa-colored arms,

  where the smell of tamales jostles with

  sweat and sweet papayas piled on blankets.

  His pace quickens when he sees what

  we've come for. “Mi hija, you'll love this.”

  Dad trades three quetzales for a coconut.

  A man with no shoes and crooked teeth, but

  hair like my own, drills a hole, drops in a straw,

  hands me the hairy fruit. Dad raises his eyebrows,

  leans forward to swallow my response.

  Well?

  I quarantine the taste of dusty mushrooms

  between cheek and clamped teeth.

  Behind a purse-lipped smile, I flush the liquid

  down my throat and nod, watch his eyes brighten,

  decide right there to drink it all.

  My tongue is needles and vinegar, but

  Dad tousles my hair. “I knew you would like it.”

  My first lie. I am five and expect the noon church bell

  or the brisk breeze to expose me, to tug

  his his shirt cuff and pour the truth in his ear.

  But the universe allows it, and he keeps his grin.

  I hug my gift. His home country.

  *

  Shoe Shopping

  I follow Mama's Wrangler label

  through jacket sleeves and pant legs to

  the back carpeted corner, the aisle

  of inclined shelves marked Sizes 1 through 3.

  “How about these?”

  She lifts a pair of white tennis shoes by

  the heels with two fingers,

  and I want to be the kind of daughter

  who says, Yes, lovely, in a white canvas voice,

  whose braids stay smooth on the swing set

  who struts past saucy boys without

  wishing one would like her.

  “No?”

  I shake my head.

  Mama's eyes flit across price stickers

  looking for low numbers.

  I count the difference, nine dollars,

  between the white shoes and the light-blue leather

  with unicorns stitched on the sides.

  Then I see the rain boots: slicker red, rounded

  toes, pull-handles arching out of the tops.

  Bells in my head go off like fire engines

  and Mama sees my eyes round as quarters,

  follows my fire hose gaze.

  I touch the place where light reflects

  off the toe box, a brushstroke of shine.

  Mama takes a deep breath.

  I bite my bottom lip, watch

  the corners of her mouth, wait

  for her to exhale.

  Suddenly, we trade places.

  I think, It never rains in Texas,

  She needs an all-purpose shoe,

  We can't afford two pairs,

  Maybe next year.

  Her head tilt says, Puddle jump fun,

  Sidewalk clops, Bright as bank door handles.

  Please?

  Her yes and my no meet

  in the space between us.

  It's three letters against two.

  *

  Gum

  “Spit it out, young lady.”

  Daddy means words, and I wonder

  if I'll throw up the whole alphabet

  on Mama's Mop-'n-Glow-ed linoleum.

  When I talk jacks and roller skates, words

  make their own staircase to Daddy's ear

  and I run right up, but no steps appear for this:

  Billy dropping wood chips down my back,

  our hot-blur chase, me shouting Fish face,

  dish for a base!

  My throat closes, and I can't

  shortcut to Daddy and me reading comics

  in the big armchair.

  He stands on my shadow, waiting

  for the head under his shoe

  to move its mouth.

  “Billy Fischer's mother cut two gum wads

  out of his hair. I want an explanation.”

  Must be words for the zip of light I swallowed

  when Billy pinned me on the grass and I

  pretended to struggle, how his eyes

  snapped to mine and stayed, even after

  Miss Thurman's whistle, even after

  the class sneakers pounded past.

  How can I say that a giant Quiet watched us,

  ready to pounce? That I had to kill it,

  break it over my knee. Gum my only hope.

  Daddy walks a tight circle.

  I place a few words at his feet.

  He leaves them behind to sit

  on a chair, run fingers through his hair.

  He searches my eyes for the lost

  box of truth, shakes his head and chuckles.

  “I'm guessing he deserved it.”

  My relief and his smile mix like

  blue and yellow make green, and he

  gives Mama a look I've never seen.

  When he tousles my hair, old me comes

  jumping into my skin.

  New girl steps to the back, standing straight

  as the line of A's I plan to get, waiting her turn.

  *

  No Shoes

  I'll bet

  if you lined up every shoe I've ever worn out,

  they'd reach all the way back

  to Le Mars, Iowa where

  people first started shoeing me,

  from Grandma and her knitted booties

  to saddle shoes, Mom's idea of style.

  The hippie woman upstairs said

  "Let the girl wear sandals, why don'cha, "

  and there was the feminist aunt,

  "Why not soccer shoes?" and my

  own small self saying, "Pleeese,

  can't I have ballet slippers, buttery-soft

  leather and pink elastic across the arch,

  either that or tap shoes, OK?"

  since I couldn't say can't I be special, can't I

  be beautiful, can't I be poised, can't I be

  somebody else?

  It was slick-bottomed patent leathers

  on Sunday, scuffed penny loafers at school,

  tennies granting that I-can-run-really-fast

  feeling at recess, and then snow boots, rain boots,

  lugg-bottomed hiking boots,

  dime-store slippers from the edge of the sink

  to the edge of the bed, all hanging

  in a compartmentalized bag inside the closet door,

  who will I be today in plastic pockets.

  On certain days I left that door closed.

  In a splash of summer, I'd sneak to

  the tree-limb swing and pump myself

  into free-falling air, my feet bare.

  *

  One Time, a Girl

  That summer was connect-the-rest-stops,

  picnicking out of a cooler, we boys tossing

  echoes in peeling paint bathrooms, and me

  deciding to slurp at the highest water fountains

  from Kansas City on.

  Dad would jean-wipe his knife while

  we ran off to Frisbee extra paper-board plates.

  I saw RV-ers, truckers, dog-walkers

  in sun hats, and, one time, a girl

&nbsp
; my age, with a jump rope.

  She could jump regular and super fast, criss-

  cross and quarter-turn, her hair and the hem

  of her skirt bouncing. When my Frisbee

  hit her in the shins, she leveled me

  a Blue-Ice-in-the-cooler stare until

  my hand stopped covering my mouth

  and waved. She eyed me for a while, and I

  was just thinking that her bangs looked crooked

  which I was deciding to like when

  she sliced the air just beautiful with that plate

  and something in my chest swirled

  like the skirt and by the time she

  stopped her spin, I remembered to catch,

  and that throw lasted me some

  forty-five turnpike miles.

  *

  The Namers

  1

  Just when you're, like, Man,

  this is tougher than elbow,

  when you're thinking,

  Smells like a millionth year,

  when you touch the silvering chips

  and a Yes throbs through your chest, and you

  go, I'm gonna keep this forever, and run

  to Mom, saying, “Hey, look at this.

  Freakin' solid, like tree trunk. Hey look,

  hey look, like a hope-to-die promise in my hand,

  cliff-colored, maybe brain-colored, and finally,

  Hey look what I got, open your hand, and

  plunk, they drop it on you:

  "Just a ROCK, kiddo."

  2

  They trudge around the world throwing out

  "TREE," like that's all there is to it. "SAXAPHONE,"

  they mutter. "ICE CREAM." You tell 'em,

  Falling down light is turning orange,

  that cloud's a neon shoe – "SUNSET."

  Like they're listening to a TV turned to the wall.

  3

  Dad bangs out the back door; Mom rocks

  on their bed dabbing her eyes.

  My brother and me stand

  on the gold piece of metal that runs

  between the linoleum and the living room carpet.

  I plant one foot on each side.

  My brother looks to me.

  Air's gone stale. A hole opens under

  our feet. Words would be piles of ash.

  4

  Dad's got a word warehouse the size of Wal-Mart. He can spell tertrafluoroethane. He's got match-sized, can-sized, boy-sized boxes. Boxes for tubby words, skinny words, words I'm not supposed to say.

  So I'm trying to think what box he'd use for the time Sandy Adams put an ice cube down my shirt and I pinned her for it against the cafeteria wall and didn't want to let go, her hair spilt across my forearm and a drum saying Let Go at the back of my head, boom boom, Let Go, her right shoulder under my palm and her collarbone firm under my thumb, Let Go, until the light started shouting and I stepped back quick.

  And what about songs, how the radio lifts you out of your shoes sometimes? Or when the number of steps to school is the answer to the first math problem. Or when you're on the bottom step of a stairway that drops off the Earth, but a glow-in-the dark thread pulls you back —what box is that?

  *

  After the Accident

  That year, Danny,

  my brother, planted

  a photograph of Dad.

  Already eight, I knew

  it wouldn't work.

  Mother busied herself with

  painting the dining room.

  She brought the round table

  in from the garage

  since it had no empty side.

  At school, Danny sowed seeds

  in paper cups, so Saturday mornings,

  he watered, weeded the small

  mound of dirt around the photograph.

  Mother emptied closets.

  I sat on the porch watching

  my breath disappear

  into the cool spring.

  I thought them lucky.

  I could think of nothing to be done.

  *

  Birthday Present from Grandma

  Fourteen candles, a fire flower,

  the fattest package an afghan

  crocheted during Grandma's hot toast

  mornings while the world flung

  the rest of us on its game board.

  I hug its gray squares, pink rosettes:

  strands of shark fin, loops of chewing-gum.

  A boy touched me today. A boy touched

  me today. A boy touched me

  cross your ankles, cross your legs, cross your heart

  in the curve above my hip.

  My skin singed, warm even after

  he walked to class. I cross my fingers.

  Folded bulk at the bed's edge

  unfurls to rows of roses.

  I lie back, melding to petals.

  Identity's a scent. My breath

  rides the ceiling fan blades.

  In a year maybe, twelve petals,

  I would rise a complete pattern.

  Grandma, what will I tell

  Ms. Martin who believes

  my white blouse, my neat handwriting?

  She will squint at her grade book,

  zero's slashed eye next to my name.

  Her sour sigh will fall into my stomach.

  I wrap myself in the hinged flowers.

  His mother caught us.

  My cardigan unbuttoned, hair bow

  slanting down my braid,

  air too flimsy to hold my voice,

  and he looked at my shoes until I left.

  She said, "I won't tell your father."

  In my own bed, afghan over my head,

  look out through latticework -—

  unmarked roads crisscrossing the night.

  Light goes dark under the door. I clutch

  Grandma's yarn, fingers stranded

  beyond roses, fingertips dipping into

  all that is tumbling toward me.

  *

  Against the Wall

  1

  man's voice braided with ice,

  his hands iron clamps on my shoulders

  forcing a kneel to cold bricks

  belt ends hanging loose

  button, dead eye, released from its socket

  zipper—the sound of needle swiping

  across record— gun barrel in my mouth

  2

  revved punk,

  his breath a pumping accelerator

  my volition collapsing to a tangle

  at the back of my throat, letting a fist

  grip my hair, tilt my head up and down—

  my only yes— bare knees grinding

  against brick floor sand

  3

  boy, 17, and eager

  leading to red bricks by

  a sweaty hand, to a corner

  where my skin is filaments

  flaring on and off, where

  his mouth on my shoulder

  spins nerve strands into pinwheels,

  fear lacing between my teeth,

  his pants around his ankles

  If you do it, he'll love you.

  4

  semen turns to brick

  in my stomach; I run

  across yellowed grass to wretch,

  to spit foamed salt onto weeds,

  cords of my hair snagging thistles,

  necklace dragging through mud

  *

  Ophelia

  weaves tender stems

  to crowns, tossing petals

  he loves me he loves me not

  a-down, a-down, a-down

  So please you, something

  touching the Lord Hamlet.

  touching Hamlet, lips

  under fingertips the touching

  Hamlet, Hamlet touching

  so please you

  you so please

  And there's a daisy for you.

  days for you

  for you
my days, for days

  in some hamlet I would

  give you some violets.

  some violence, some violate

  O, t' have seen what I have seen!

  Get me to a sunnery,

  lay my head in his lap

  of light, a light-headed leap

  into too much sun

  *

  (Back To Top)

  Part 2: Palabras/Words

  Hearing the Baby, 1:00am

  Am I better off

  with my complete alphabet,

  my Websterian vocabulary,

  more polysyllables to

  shout into dark?

  *

  Watching Two-Year-Old Twins Eat Watermelon

  It is something like water

  spilling over a brim,

  like sunlight dripping

  between leaves; it is like

  giggling, or hearing tiny bells,

  eyes blinking in the bright holiness of now.

  *

  Interrupted While Reading

  For him, our song goes

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “Mom?” is handle

  to a door that always opens.

  “Mom?” – pick-up note

  before downbeat.

  For me, "Mom?" is a bell

  ringing behind my novel's orchestra

  "Mom?!" ding ding

  my book's brass choir fading,

  basses and cellos dropping out

  "Mo-om?"

  I look up, the too large room too

  bright, unbounded by spread thumb and pinky.

  A lone violin floats the heroine's

  melody behind "Mom,

  may I have a drink of water?"

  *

  Spotless Teakettle

  Hey, Mom!

  Methodically

  Phone-ringPhone-ring

  she aligns shoulder seams

  Mom! Doorbell

  folds each sleeve back

  Are we out of toilet paper, Dear?

  marries collar to waist hem

  He took my!

  folds each child

  This one

  using the same care

  needs a diaper.

  pinning wrists

  bending heels to neck

  I'm not sleepy

  tucking each head under the drawer lip

  are you?

  husband she hangs in the closet

  by the clavicles

  that done

  She fills the spotless teakettle.

  *

  Tympanogram at Three Years

  The line should arc

  into a box on the printout

  like a roller coaster hill

  against a square of sky,

  like the trajectory of a phrase,

  the rising pitch of question

  and fall of answer.

  But the ink dots flatline which

  might mean sound

  against his eardrum is

  a deflated basketball thud

  or that fluid in the middle ear

  washes our consonants away,

  leaving my son at the far end of

  a round vowel tunnel

  without the "g-uh" for "hug."

  The audiologist's mouth is a flat line,

  a straight road to the speech therapist

  and a class called Disabled. At home

  he is dis-labeled; he knows

  "love" without "v-uh."

  *

  Communication Baseball

  Brain, you're trained:

  sprint the sideline to snatch

  Mom's grounder meanings,

  jump-catch Dad's Spanglish pop-flies.

  Interview questions? Snug in the glove.

  Lecturers' bulleted points?

  Bare handed.

  But my son, at five,

  floats vowels towards

  the outfield, leaves half his

  alphabet benched.

  His voice throws a balloon I paw

  with the mitt. The hard ball never comes,

  just phoneme petals that gust out of reach.