and never gives back pencils
just sleeps all day
while we do numbers
or all the time in a red pen
she got for her birthday
writes Susan Susan Susan
in fancy letters
The nun says
we must be kind
to everyone
or rot in fires
including Susan
who is sick
and has the fits
till she gets tired
then two boys
have to hold her legs
down and one girl her dress
and she gets to sleep all day
and wakes with crumpled hair
and spit
This
is who I told
I don’t like you
because you stink
of chocolate
and menstruation
and who is sick
already 48 hours
but I don’t care
Twister Hits Houston
Papa was on the front porch.
Mama was in the kitchen.
Mama was trying
to screw a lightbulb into a fixture.
Papa was watching the rain.
Mama, it’s a cyclone for sure,
he shouted to his wife in the kitchen.
Papa who was sitting on his front porch
when the storm hit
said the twister ripped
the big back oak to splinter,
tossed a green sedan into his garden,
and banged the back door
like a mad cat wanting in.
Mama who was in the kitchen
said Papa saw everything,
the big oak ripped to kindling,
the green sedan land out back,
the back door slam and slam.
I missed it.
Mama was in the kitchen Papa explained.
Papa was sitting on the front porch.
That light bulb is still sitting
where I left it. Don’t matter now.
Got no electricity anyway.
Curtains
Rich people don’t need them.
Poor people tie theirs into fists
or draw them tight as modest brides
up to the neck.
Inside they hide bright walls.
Turquoise or lipstick pink.
Good colors in another country.
Here they can’t make you forget
the dinette set that isn’t paid for,
floorboards the landlord needs to fix,
raw wood, linoleum roses,
the what you wanted but didn’t get.
Joe
Joe Joe’s mama’s baby
grown man 54 years old and lazy
Joe who is landlord and landlady
upstairs neighbor of Bianca and Benny
and let us have our Beatle fan club
under basement stairs where
waterbugs crawled out from all
over our favorite picture
of Paul McCartney
Watch out said Blanca
Watch out said Benny
Little girls beware Run away
he was the boogie man
the same Blanca saw asleep
with only underwear
and a lady’s stocking on his head
He and Davy the Baby’s brother
in that garage for hours
Fat cigars butts on the floor
like those waterbugs we killed
beneath our shoe And on the walls
naked lady pictures
real and not real
for Joe and Davy’s brother
to look at slow
And now Joe’s mama who is tired
who is a little puff of smoke
behind the screen calls Joe
out of that garage and quick
while Joe who is also tired
yells upstairs no and takes
his fat cigars and his fat nose
and his aqua car and goes
Then we don’t hear
hours and hours and
meeting is adjourned until
when all will read in the papers
tomorrow how Joe who is the same
who says Yes I like go-go
and No I don’t see Beatle movies
dies under a wheel
on the road to St. Charles
which everybody knows
was God’s will
Traficante
for Dennis
Pink like a starfish’s belly
or a newborn rat,
she hid the infected hand
for some time
before they noticed.
First the skin had been smooth
as the left hand.
Then the fence
had poked through,
a tiny slit, the mouth of a small fish.
A crispy scab had stitched it to a pucker
but this was picked on until the wound
turned a purple-pink
and gradually became swollen
and hurt to the touch.
She liked to draw the fat hand
into her sleeve,
keep it hiding there,
a fish in its cave.
Sometimes it would come out
and she would talk to it.
At school the teacher
pulled the hand out suddenly
and the child yelped.
The mother took her
to Traficante’s Drugs
where the doctor had an office
behind the case of eyeglasses
all colors and different styles.
He asked to see the hand.
The fish poked out
from the cuff of a nubby sleeve,
darted back in, then was out again
and placed upon the table
beneath the bright lamp.
One finger pressed its side
and she whimpered.
The doctor took down from the shelf
the medical encyclopedia, vol.2,
and holding her by the wrist
said turn around.
Mrs. Ortiz was having a prescription filled
for Reynaldo’s fever and was asking
how much when the book came down.
MY WICKED WICKED WAYS
Isn’t a bad girl almost like a boy?
—MAXINE HONG KINGSTON
My Wicked Wicked Ways
This is my father.
See? He is young.
He looks like Errol Flynn.
He is wearing a hat
that tips over one eye,
a suit that fits him good,
and baggy pants.
He is also wearing
those awful shoes,
the two-toned ones
my mother hates.
Here is my mother.
She is not crying.
She cannot look into the lens
because the sun is bright.
The woman,
the one my father knows,
is not here.
She does not come till later.
My mother will get very mad.
Her face will turn red
and she will throw one shoe.
My father will say nothing.
After a while everyone
will forget it.
Years and years will pass.
My mother will stop mentioning it.
This is me she is carrying.
I am a baby.
She does not know
I will turn out bad.
Six Brothers
In Grimm’s tale “The Six Swans” a sister keeps a six-year silence and weaves six thistle shirts to break the spell that has changed her brothers into swans. She weaves all but the left sleeve of the final shirt, and when the brothers are changed back into men, the youngest lacks only his left arm and has in its place a
swan’s wing.
In Spanish our name means swan.
A great past—castles maybe
or a Sahara city,
but more likely
a name that stuck
to a barefoot boy
herding the dusty flock
down the bright road.
We’ll never know.
Great-grandparents might
but family likes to keep to silence—
perhaps with reason
though we don’t need far back to go.
On our father’s side we have a cousin,
second, but cousin nonetheless,
who shot someone, his wife I think.
And on the other hand, there’s
mother’s brother who shot himself.
Then there’s us—
seven ways to make the name or break it.
Our father has it planned:
oldest, you’re doctor,
second, administration,
me, he shrugs, you should’ve been reporting weather,
next, musician,
athlete,
genius,
and youngest—well,
you’ll take the business over.
You six a team
keeping to the master plan,
the lovely motion of tradition.
Appearances are everything.
We live for each other’s expectations.
Brothers, it is so hard to keep up with you.
I’ve got the bad blood in me I think,
the mad uncle, the bit of the bullet.
Ask me anything.
Six thistle shirts. Keep a vow of silence.
I’ll do it. But I’m earthbound
always in my admiration.
My six brothers, graceful, strong.
Except for you, little one-winged,
finding it as difficult as me
to keep the good name clean.
Mariela
One day you forget his bitter smell
and one day you forget your shame.
You remember how your small cry
rose like a blackbird from the corn,
when you picked yourself up from the earth
how the clouds moved on.
Josie Bliss
When you die, she used to say to me, my fears will end.
—PABLO NERUDA, MEMOIRS
Explain
about the hand
the infection
raised
from some
nostalgia
a tropical dream
of Wednesdays
a bitter sorrow
like the salt
between the breasts
the palm
a lotus
a brown girl
around the neck
sleeper tell
me
the ones
you held like me
the ones who loved
your hard wrists
and belly
this
tiger circle this
knife blade
man I have no power
over
I the Woman
I
am she
of your stories
the notorious
one
leg wrapped
around
the door
bare heart
sticking
like a burr
the fault
the back street
the weakness
that’s me
I’m
the Thursday
night
the poor
excuse
I am she
I’m dark
in the veins
I’m
intoxicant
I’m hip
and good skin
brass
and sharp tooth
hard lip pushed
against
the air
I’m lightbeam
no stopping me
I am
your temporary
thing
your own
mad
dancing
I am
a live
wildness
left
behind
one earring
in the car
a fingerprint
on skin
the black smoke
in your
clothes
and in
your
mouth
Something Crazy
The man with the blue hat
doesn’t come back anymore.
He stopped a long time ago.
Before I got married. Before the kids came.
Nobody looks at me like that anymore.
I remember days I couldn’t wait to work.
He left me big tips. He had a good smile.
But what I gave my eye for
was that moment when he’d turn around
as he was leaving
and look at me.
Oh I was crazy
for that man a long time.
Came in every day for three years.
Never said a word besides what he was having.
He’d eat and pay and just as he was leaving,
turn around.
I was young then, understand?
Nobody ever looked at me before.
I even dreamed that he might take me
to my high school dance, imagine.
Waitresses have come and gone.
I’ve stayed on.
The man with the blue hat
doesn’t come back.
I wish he did.
I wish he did.
Just so I could say, Mister
that was quite a crush I had.
Just so I could laugh.
What I felt for him was different,
something crazy. The kind of thing
you look for all your life.
In a redneck bar down the street
my crazy
friend Pat
boasts she can chug
one bottle of Pabst
down one swig
without even touching
swing and it’s up in
she glugging like a watercooler
everyone watching
boy that crazy
act every time gets them
bartender runs over
says lady don’t
do that again
Love Poem # 1
a red flag
woman I am
all copper
chemical
and you an ax
and a bruised
thumb
unlikely
pas de deux
but just let
us wax
it’s nitro
egypt
snake
museum
zoo
we are
connoisseurs
and commandos
we are rowdy
as a drum
not shy like Narcissus
nor pale as plum
then it is I want to hymn
and hallelujah
sing sweet sweet jubilee
you my religion
and I a wicked nun
The blue dress
at the corner
over your shoulder
waving solitary small
the blue dress
bouquet in one arm
blue wind
curve of the belly
the blue dress is waving
goodbye
Five-and-ten
there are flowers
and you buy her some
You want to gather
her small shoulders
in one arm like a brother
Want to tell her that you love her
You do not love her
You buy her flowers
Sunday’s pass is good
till six she says
Her arms are thin
The nuns get mad she says
Her white skin
She knows the subways now
as if she were a native
The simple curve of the jaw
Someone offers his seat
You never noticed
She takes it
And her eyes are blue
The meal you paid for
you can’t eat at all
She talks of towns you know
names you don’t
asks if she can have
what you’re not eating
She says any day now
You don’t know what to say
Monday is my birthday
Her favorite color is blue
Blue as a pearl
the blue dress approaches late
You wait along the whale display
a slower gait a thinner smile
swell of the belly
ridiculously blue
The blue dress embraces you
The letter said come Sunday
Sunday is best
No men allowed
I am fine
At the museum wait
You wear your best suit
and the tie your mother gave you
You buy the ticket for your flight
Sunday at the museum
the blue dress
yes
The Poet Reflects on Her Solitary Fate
She lives alone now.
Has abandoned the brothers,
the rooms of fathers
and many mothers.
They have left her
to her own device.
Her nightmares and pianos.
She owns a lead pipe.
The stray lovers
have gone home.
The house is cold.
There is nothing on TV.
She must write poems.
His Story
I was born under a crooked star.
So says my father.
And this perhaps explains his sorrow.
An only daughter
whom no one came for
and no one chased away.
It is an ancient fate.
A family trait we trace back
to a great aunt no one mentions.
Her sin was beauty.
She lived mistress.