Palabras in Each Fist, Page 3

  *

  “Boy Picking Flower,” Colored by Five-Year-Old

  One fat fuchsia petal upstages

  a macaroni-and-cheese sun,

  the blue-legged boy, and

  parallel lines of neon grass.

  The blossom basks

  front of center, rising on its red-

  stemmed adrenaline

  to stretch across seven fresh

  inches of 8 1/2 x 11.

  Magenta arm meets

  a petal's edge, the rim of

  a burnt sienna cave mouth

  large enough to stand in,

  thick tab tall enough to hold

  a wild-tangerine head high.

  Thumb-sized boy plucks

  the plate-sized psychedelic daisy,

  its striped center a set

  of slanting books

  thrust in a porthole,

  its round of petals a ring

  of arched doors, its stem a stout rope.

  *

  May Snowstorm

  Blue white purple orange

  construction-paper circles cut

  on the folds, snipped to neat angles:

  zigging peaks or jack-o-lantern teeth.

  Happy in scatters of cuttings,

  smiling at the kisk of scissors,

  his two-dimensional sculpting, he

  barely flinches at a zag of lightning

  near the window, its concurrent crack,

  intent on his own falling blades, his own

  live slices electrifying the tabletop,

  mind burning, bare hands

  forging ice with fire.

  *

  This Kid

  Clenched words ricochet

  off my imperfect pitching.

  My seven-year-old craves

  three hits in a row, needs it

  like caffeine or his father's approval.

  Heat folds over us, and I throw.

  The ball swings outside, wide

  of the bat's reach, wide of his

  cold-sweat confidence and the square

  of ratty carpet called home plate.

  Anger steams off his skin

  lifting like a flock of crows,

  loud black cloud.

  “Sorry,” I flick an apology,

  shake my head. This perfectionist kid.

  I concentrate. He squints. Each missed

  connection makes the next harder,

  like eye contact after I stood up his dad

  ten years ago. My future husband

  stirring a three course meal turned low.

  My good excuse, no excuse.

  The boy's hair glistens with sweat; I pitch.

  Summer heat jostles the molecules, blurring

  the ball, home plate, words I could offer

  if he misses, and the memory of

  which of us offered Breakfast, my treat.

  A hit. Two. I walk a small circle,

  boring a hole in the tension settling around us.

  My son grips the bat. What is this,

  the World Series? Why three, I ask,

  to loosen the molecules. He looks at me,

  his eyes on simmer.

  My throw is high, but I hear a thok.

  The ball flies like true words, a sailing jay.

  Happy silence is the best response.

  Good job! would ruin it.

  He allows himself a smile. Relief

  rolls over the grass. Each connection

  makes the next easier.

  *

  For A Son

  I am telling you

  for the last time now

  how it happened,

  why we had to go,

  what little we took with us,

  what we brought back.

  But what I want you to

  remember is this:

  we traveled three years,

  Odysseus spent ten. Christ

  took only days, coming back

  with his identity whole, known.

  Your journey

  will set its own time.

  Length is not important.

  And even if you never return,

  know that I understand

  and will have joy.

  *

  Newton's Laws of Family Motion

  1

  An object in motion tends to stay in motion; an object at rest tends to stay at rest.

  My mother's because I said so

  moving through DNA

  at a constant speed

  comes out my mouth.

  The shape of your body at rest

  under the comforter.

  Me late from work, aroused;

  remaining at rest

  remaining aroused.

  2

  The rate of change of momentum of a body is proportional to the force acting on the body.

  We accelerate three swings

  one stroller

  then, throwing bread to

  gathered ducks,

  the children move us.

  Person A: 160 lbs.

  Person B: 110 lbs.

  Who can most easily be pushed

  to tears?

  3

  To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

  Ponytail rings,

  underwear, waistbands.

  I'm sorry comes back as embrace.

  You give me your life;

  I give you mine.

  *

  Teeth

  Tiny chimney brush,

  a dandelion seed

  wafts down, its black tip

  a weighted handle – ballast,

  Mary Poppins perfect-postured

  under her umbrella

  drifting toward a housetop,

  tufts of magic in her pockets,

  and wasn't it England

  where I first ate dandelion

  greens, where a hunched woman

  called it dent de leon, and I

  laughed, thinking, teeth? saw instead

  the sun-tawnied mane

  the fuzzed muzzle and wished

  to carry dandelion honey

  through customs to the children

  and tufts of magic to their father

  who sometimes drifts

  toward the house

  sometimes brushes past.

  “Don't gather in summer,” she'd said.

  “The leaves are too bitter by then.”

  *

  Sweeping the Kitchen

  oatmeal flakes,

  stray grape

  skin cell dust

  sand carried in pant cuffs,

  and every spoken syllable

  lost to our ears, sifting down

  from mouths to linoleum:

  the dream you told me Sunday

  which fell from my hands,

  the couldn't you stay home tonight

  I exhaled instead of speaking

  Regrets are fuzzy grays

  piled in corners that

  the broom can't reach.

  *

  Impasse

  They are standing close together,

  but at angles. One more silent minute,

  and she will go to the kitchen to cook

  or maybe out to the garden where

  empty stalks twist and curl.

  He will stand at the window,

  in the shadow of oaks opening

  their fists of leaves,

  staring at his own empty hands

  pressed against the glass.

  *

  Pompeii on the Discovery Channel

  He crashes through the door

  in steel-toed boots. She becomes

  that open-mouthed moment:

  sky jolting loose, ground a sheet

  shaken at either end.

  Palm strikes her cheekbone;

  Lava floods the streets.

  A clay child is discovered

  in an inner room, knees tucked

  under chin. She crou
ches

  in the shower as he slams out the door.

  Archeologists find a skeletal tangle,

  hand bones clutching others' shoulders

  or waists, linked elbows, fingers laced.

  No one in this family divorces.

  Only one head raises; only one torso turns

  a single hand reaches.

  Just one thinks: Run.

  *

  Retreat

  She came in winter,

  but did not speak

  until March, and even then

  took her meals in silence.

  We could not ask what happened.

  We only knew that years before,

  she had married.

  Every day she walked,

  in any weather, after breakfast,

  after supper, sometimes after dark.

  The fields of her girlhood knew her.

  While she stayed, she ate alone,

  walked alone. When she left,

  the ground was still frozen hard,

  the wind cold.

  *

  Is the self

  a place I'm bound to arrive—

  sun-flooded clearing, fire-lit room—

  the destination of every possible road,

  a place left early, rediscovered late, or

  a bowl of stars, so weightless

  I forget where it rests, forget if

  I've left it somewhere,

  or a thing I excavate for lifetimes,

  each day an archeological brush-swipe,

  each experience a shovel-full of sand.

  *

  Self-Forgiveness

  Sky hangs low today,

  and gray. Clouds snag

  in treetops.

  A tepid light

  falls coldly over

  each mistake:

  thistles I place

  on my tongue.

  Only I can

  swallow them.

  *

  Prayer By Kite

  Around his first finger,

  the barefoot boy

  curls his question,

  winding the paper strip

  until its spiral holds.

  Unlatching his trust,

  he fixes slip to string, and words

  ride skyward, wind propelling

  his plea along cotton.

  Penciled letters, all capitals,

  ask the question Mother shouts

  in the streets.

  "W": downstrokes followed by ups,

  a fence to hedge emptiness.

  "H": hitched opposites,

  a slim bar connecting

  tiny coffin's straight-backed no

  to shovel handle's vertical yes.

  "Y": braid of love and loss,

  one string fraying to two.

  His question mark follows a curved path

  that straightens, leaps across a chasm,

  lands on a still point. Its hook hoists

  a weight from his small frame.

  *

  Questioning the Flood

  Imagine the family of Noah,

  the limp hair of the daughters-in-law,

  Mother hanging woolens to dry

  optimistically near the fire,

  Stiff feed bags slowly softening.

  Perhaps a young girl spent hours

  watching clouds, gray rags

  shredded by lightning.

  Twisting hair around a finger,

  scratching the sill with a fingernail.

  How old the indoor games must have grown,

  hopping on one foot around

  the upper deck, morning chores . . .

  Did she squelch an urge to leap

  to a passing treetop? just to be out,

  or alone, to escape Uncle's storytelling

  after dinner, stories of a world already

  receding. Or did the child

  compose her own story

  of raccoons trapped in high limbs,

  the swimming bear who followed the ark,

  a playmate's mouth filling

  with water, or a child like herself,

  disciplined by a voice

  half velvet, half thunder?

  Here, where skies are dark also,

  where we hear of dams breaking

  downstream, where three times in two days

  water has carried a car away

  or closed over its roof like an eyelid,

  here, I am the pensive child

  watching water, trying

  to make room

  in my velvet word, Love,

  for thunder.

  *

  Ferry Crossing

  It was this same river,

  though further upstream,

  that swallowed you whole last spring.

  Summer sun has made it lean again,

  and it does not look so violent

  as I remember.

  That day was all motion.

  one mass of water

  stampeding down its course

  ripping at each bank

  crashing rocks on branches on boulders

  roaring, roaring mixing with your screams

  and me on shore

  shouting into nothing but air

  the bank unraveling under my feet

  and my own soul unraveling

  But today is calm.

  Each ripple licks the bank with

  almost motherly care, like our old cat

  bathing her single kitten.

  The gate man is signaling.

  She leaves in three minutes, he says.

  I'm looking for some sign of you,

  some leftover trace,

  but all I see is a robin

  ailing towards the south.

  Winter will be here soon.

  There is nothing to do

  but cross.

  *

  ###

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  Teacher's Guide

  1. Exploring Figures of Speech

  Objectives: Identify figures of speech. Create an original metaphor.

  In the poem, “Shoe-shopping,” mark the figures of speech. Decide why “quarters” and “bank door handles” are appropriate comparisons. What about the fire department language? What emotional tone does that convey?

  Exercise: Create your own metaphor for love. Start by writing “Love is,” and follow this with an object, such as a door, a blanket, a plate, etc. Then write three more sentences that explain your comparison. Share.

  2. Exploring Sound Devices

  Objectives: Identify sound devices in poetry. Use sound devices in original writing.

  In “Ave America,” the poet uses sound in a variety of ways. Find examples of rhyme, repetition, internal rhyme, assonance, consonance, and rhythm. Sound play helps the poet develop the metaphor of life as a dance. How is “dance” appropriate for the theme of this poem?

  Exercise: Recall a moment in your life when you entered a new place (new school, new town, took a trip, new class). Describe the place using sensory details. Convey your feelings about this place by showing your actions (such as skipping, smiling, collapsing to the floor, slouching to a chair). Now rewrite your piece, adding sound play. Try repeating consonants, vowels, words, or phrases. Try rhyming words that appear next to eachother or close by, not allowing end rhymes to be the only rhymes. Share your second piece and talk about your process of adding sound play.

  3. Exploring Character

  Objectives: Identify and discuss themes in a poem. Write a poem that conveys a theme.

  In “Guatemala,” what is the speaker grappling with? She wants to repress her heritage by stuffing it “inside [her] closet.” Is this working well for her? What else bothers her? Does she fear the Dairy Queen boys or does she fear something in herself?

  Exercise: Think of an object inside your own closet (or garage, attic, basement). Describe the object in sensory detail. Personify the object by having it speak. Let the object give you advice;
it knows something you don't or that you tend to forget. What is it? Share.

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  Reading Group Discussion Questions

  1. The speaker navigates between two cultures and two languages. Where do we see mixed feelings, negative feelings, and positive feelings about this dual identity? Where can we find a sense of loss or a sense of gain?

  2. One theme the book explores is language itself. Where do we find misunderstood words, silent exchanges, inadequate language, language as connection, words as barriers? What is the meaning of the quote at the book's opening by Richard Feynman and how does it connect to the the book?

  3. In “Guatemala,” why does the speaker shove everything into the closet at the end?

  4. Several poems refer to the language-delayed twins. How does the speaker handle this challenge?

  5. Several poems explore married life and parenting. What joys and hardships does the speaker experience? How does she cope?

  6. What does the ending of “Ferry Crossing” convey? How does its theme apply to the book as a whole?

  7. A few poems in this collection are prose poems, written as paragraphs. Do these qualify as poems? Why or why not?

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  About the Author

  Rebecca Balcárcel serves the students of Tarrant County College as Associate Professor of English. She took her MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars where she was awarded the Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize. Her essays and poems have appeared in over forty literary journals, and she received an Individual Artist Grant from NE Tarrant County Arts Council in 2010. Rebecca gives talks at libraries and schools. On her YouTube channel, she offers writing tips and literary analysis. Rebecca is mother to three and enjoys taking walks. Her past adventures include biking 1300 miles, skydiving, and nursing twins.

  Connect with Rebecca online

  Twitter: r_balcarcel

  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedit.com/pub/rebecca-balcarcel/a/a92/688/

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebecca.balcarcel

  Blog: https://poettopoet.blogspot.com/

  YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SixMinuteScholar

  Main website: https://sites.google.com/site/rebeccabalcarcel/home

  Coming soon from Rebecca!

  Quijana, a novel in verse

  Meet Quijana, a bi-racial teen who struggles to find her identity, help her developmentally delayed brother, and turn her friendship with Jayden into a romance. Join her as she discovers deeper truths about her heritage, her friends, and herself. From the new manuscript:

  Quijanita

  Dad says “Quijanita” as he tucks me into bed.

  I settle into sleep thinking, -ita is

  three drops of honey on his tongue,

  three swirls of cinnamon stirred into my name.

  It's a squeeze of sweetness,

  a fling of flower petals. It's a kiss

  on each eyelid and the tip of my nose,

  and the reality, suddenly believable,

  that I belong right here.

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