Wash and dry (draft) June 27, 2011

Wash and Dry
We don’t have a washer in our home,
we don’t have a dryer here.
So we wash our clothes at granma’s white house
in the morning outside the city where the grass is clean.
The grass is clean and there ain’t any bent cans, or
crushed camel packs.
There ain’t no concrete to crack, crack to buy.
Granma just buys flowers she put in all her windows while
she watch the neighborhood kids play.
It smells like cinnamon and the carpet is thick.
And when I take off my shoes I move my feet like I’m
walkin on water like Jesus.

My mama ignores me,
carrying in the baskets and disappears behind the door
to the washer and dryer while granma clicks her tongue.
“Gal, are you hungry?” she ask. I say only a little bit,
watchin her as she brings out the skillet with some
bacon and eggs, listenin for mama and the door.
I hear mama stuffing the laundry as the bacon sizzles,
her sigh, the baskets sliding across the floor and I
can see the shadows moving fast like she’s dancin.

She never let me come in to help her,
granma never let me either.
“Let her alone, she can do it herself.”
Mama comes out sometimes
to fix her something to eat, openin the cabinets
softly so the hinges don’t creak.
She sends me into the laundry room to watch
the washer and dryer shake while she eats.
Mama always stuffs the washer and dryer so that
they thump, thump.
The washer and dryer thump thump so loud
you almost can’t hear them when they
argue, trying to keep everything that’s inside of them
from tumbling out.

On the Way June 7, 2011

She likes the way the night feels,
the way the black air lifts her trench coat
and shows more of her pale legs that glide like silk.
The night clings to her like dress she wears,
short, made of Lycra but not trashy like the rhinestone and
ribbon-clad she sees strutting corners, those streetlight islands
of concrete. She is going to where all the dry mouthed lovers and liars are,
their visible breath turning with the neon bulbs blue, green, red, yellow
—then nothing, the flickering bar sign promising paradise for the forsaken.
She just keeps walking, her beaten up black pumps so insistent that
they leave grooves in the cracked pavement, the click-clack drowning out
the laughter of lost souls, the hollow sound finding space somewhere between
her double-pierced ears and squatting there.
Derelict-delightful like the flies that dance around the dumpster,
to Tommy’s Bar, that is where she is headed.
He will be waiting for her in the last booth, their booth.
Holding him close, their lips will touch like the familiar red vinyl booth pressed
against her thighs. She will ignore the sharp pleats of his suit’s slacks, feeling
the ring in his right breast pocket of his ironed white shirt.
She will not think about the love she gives by the hour,
the black and white clock on the wall ticking and taunting.

When the Rain Came April 15, 2011

My younger brother Jesse was first to notice the thick, humid air as
we played with the neighborhood children in our front yard.
Like Mama and empty flower patch, he didn’t possess much confidence
in nature’s miracles, stomping on the yellow grass which crunched
beneath our feet. But he was the one who stopped as we continued to run,
orbiting around him, his nostrils twitching. We were unaware at first of
the wind picking up or the nimbus clouds that moped over our heads until
the shaking leaves—frantic or excited, we couldn’t tell—
began to wail as the tree branches swayed.
Mama called us in from her window, her brown face
hidden by the absence of the kerosene lamp light that usually
glowed behind her when the sun couldn’t make up its mind whether to give up
or not.

Those days the heat and light from the lamp made her sick, so she kept it off
until our father came home, with a damp dish towel on her forehead.
“Charles,” Mama cried out in one long drawl, in that way I hated.
“Get these kids inside this house.”
No longer an equal, I marched my former comrades into our front door,
cringing as if by my age, the responsibility of the storm’s arrival rested
solely on my shoulders. I tried not to look at them too much as they
lolled on the family room rug, tracing tiny cars over its patterns, pretending to get lost
in the myriad of bright colors. I made them lemonade and set out some cookies,
ignoring one of Jesse’s friends who called me “Maw”. And every now and again I
would get up and change Mama’s terrycloth so she wouldn’t have to get up; Jesse had not
noticed yet that Mama’s feet were starting to get swollen, and I was afraid that the
rain and thunder would drown her out as it pounded over our roof.

When the heavy rains passed, we agreed that was still light enough to investigate,
taking care not to let the front door slam as we snuck out. The somber grass
was tired and wet, the leaves dripped over the ominous black trunks while a few birds still
sang on its branches. It was the lingering worms that did not scare me. Translucent as
a string of pearls, their bodies had grown fat from rain and dirt. Only a few of them
were moving about—the rest were resting in a heap, cradled in a grove in the grass.
Yet all of them were still glowing, glorious.

Doctor’s Visit (draft) March 31, 2011

I had watched as his limbs twisted this way and that
on the doctor’s table as he saw the doctor expertly draw out the
needle, as doctors do. He was afraid to touch Isaac; it took two
thin-lipped nurses to hold him down, their white uniforms wrinkling
over their pale skin, their fingers pink and sprawled out like lily petals.
At one point, one of them had turned over and asked my brother and I where our father was. “He was unavailable today”, Mama jumped in,
bright as the lightbulb picking up the doctor’s grey hairs. For a moment
we all believed her. Isaac stopped squirming and his skin was pricked. A few drops of blood came out expectedly and with little affair.

I held his hand as we three walked out of the doctor’s office, a little jealous as Isaac turned the cherry DumDum in his mouth with the other, so that you could see the Power Rangers Band-Aid sticking out from under his shirt sleeve. He was peaceful.
Mama, said that he was just a little boy who afraid of the needle, that was all. But a few hours later, while we sat in front of the television, Isaac pulled back the Band-Aid half-way so that you could see the dried, red splotch and it scared me. There was something about the blood being trapped on the white part of it, no longer cruising his veins, but held down only to be discarded.

Sam and Leah, 1995 March 14, 2011

I was taken that fall, before the years got lost somewhere
between your first ballet and your father’s death and the
hereandnow. If you had given me another chance, before I
felt your shears tear away at me, your eyes would have fallen again
to your father’s flannelled-wrapped arm draped over your shoulder.
Then you’d see his smile and your smile, and wonder how he didn’t know,
would never know, that you loved the way his cologne mixed with the
smell of cars he had worked on all day.

But you will say that I am lost, not laying in a trash can by your desk; I
Have no choice but to befriend your old chemistry papers, an old belly button
ring, a half-eaten granola bar and a folded Coke can. You thought I talked too
much, and you didn’t want to remember that a car could become a heinous piece
of metal and plastic and leather—not a shield from death. I reminded you of a time before
grief becoming deadfall for grief, especially when I was passed around in the white-laced
album, the distant relatives cooing about miracle of genetics. They’d asked you when I
was taken and you’d say 1995 as if years could truly be protected in plastic.

So you will sit at the kitchen table, because your mother will insist on it, and you
will watch but never participate in the painful project of reorganizing the photographs.
She will see the naked slot and ask about me and you will say that “Lost”, and we will both
brood that either way, it is the truth.

Prodigy March 14, 2011

I grew up next to you, our undeveloped bodies squeezed by the confines of her body, our fragile limbs already grappling underwater. “There’s a war in there,” our mother would say. Her ringless hand sat on top of her stomach, feeling her belly tumbling like a broken washing machine. We already knew before anyone else, before her, or the doctor who mouthed “Downs Syndrome” to Oma when mother refused to let her in to see her grandsons. She became agnostic when she traced the flat bridge of your nose, but she didn’t know we still came out as friends and would be for a little while. We were a few days shy of ten, weren’t we? Jimmy had wanted me to stay out late to play baseball. The air was so thick that it felt like rippling inky water when we moved along the soft grass. We weren’t allowed; you wanted to go inside and make paper doilies like Oma did. Your were good at it. You liked the intimacy of the shapes canoodling with other shapes and admired how they gaped but never lacked. When you threatened to tell, that’s when I struck you and yelled “Go you, retard!” In the dark I was so close to you that I could feel the blood riding on your brow and the knot on your head and something more.

Yellow Bathing Suit March 14, 2011

I walk towards a dilapidated warehouse that’s all brick with broken glass,
gripping the crumpled paper in my hand, my nail polish leaving red
marks between ads for SWMs and lemons. I had taken it from that
damned man who rents upstairs, the one who reminds me how thin
the walls are when he masturbates. My thumb has rubbed the ad until
I am sure it’s just blurred, black ink and not “Fashion models needed, ages
15-25, no experience needed.”

Inside I notice the cracked radio in the corner first, blasting
MJ through one speaker, then the girls sitting in folding chairs stiff and
pale as paper dolls. A man with a swarthy face and amateur camera
swinging around his neck turns his head and looks me over the way my mother
doesn’t like. “Charles, grab her suit.” “Me?” I say, the way Annie did the
first time she was given a broom. He thrusts a yellow one –piece in my hand. It’s the
color of a butter-stick, and I take in the sequins about to fall off, the tear on the
left shoulder. Like an idiot, I start crying right then and there. Still, no one is paying attention
to me as I sob and I am relieved, watching a bunch of thin-raked girls throwing
a beach ball for $20.

Song of the Day Still Corners “Don’t Fall In Love” February 2, 2011

Yellow Bathing Suit February 2, 2011

I walk towards a dilapidated warehouse that’s all brick with broken glass,
Gripping the crumpled paper in my hand, my nail polish leaving
Red marks between ads for SMW and lemons. I had stolen it from
That damned man who rents upstairs—The one who doesn’t bathe and wakes
me up when he masturbates. My thumb is rubbing the ad until
I am sure it’s just blurred, black ink. “Fashion Models Needed, Ages 15-30,
No Experience Needed” it supposed to say and below it a promise for $20.

The inside is hot and sticky like a little kid’s palms.
I notice the cracked radio in the corner first, blasting MJ through
One speaker, then the girls—sitting in folding chairs stiff and pale
As paper dolls. The beach ball and fake sand tells me this is a summer
Shoot and a man with swarthy face and amateur camera swinging around
His neck turns head from a blonde in a skimpy two piece and looks at me.
“Charles, grab her suit.” “Me?” I say out loud but he doesn’t reply,
Instead Charles thrusts a yellow one-piece in my hands. It’s the color of a
Butter stick and sparkly. I notice the sequins which are beginning to fall off,
The tear on the left shoulder and my face grows hot.

For the Summer January 10, 2011

Cynthia, you remember when the
closet was just another place to hide?
Stuffed away, you politely asked her things:
the toothbrush, that sofa, a baking dish,
if you could just eat, if you could just piss.
Never did they answer back, all silent
like her , unsympathetic and stony.
So you watched the dancing venetian blinds
chop up the clouds and blue sky, her boyfriend
babbling in Japanese those love songs.
You hated his anime anyway.
You waited for her to redeem you, maybe.
Like the father’s day card you couldn’t write,
Like the stifling smoke from ma’s cigarette.
here was the thing: you were blood but just blood.