Palabras in Each Fist
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
 
; 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.