1.

He tried to show me mushroom: something soft
in a dark place. Me all dressed in ruffles
like plastic birthday icing, like weakness,
like girl. Mermaid-slick under the sprinkler,
I ran. He waited beneath the surface
of my lawn, hung thick and wrong in summer
air: heat shimmered and he appeared. Mother
murmured like water over stone, What games
do you two play? I could not speak. Turned me
desert dry--tongue a broken pyramid,
hate itched in me like sparks. To be a girl-
child and weak! --I could not bear or blink, stared
from my window to his until his face
ran in my eyes like wax. His door shuddered,
curled black-edged thin as eggshell; his windows
burst like a newborn sun. Scorched air rumbled
like earthquake. I slipped beneath my bed, held
my breath still as a wounded bird--Mother
washing dishes in the back must not come
too soon. Too soon siren-shriek split the smoke,
but when he stumbled out: EMTs wrapped
him white as rabbit's belly, his limbs gone
red as running sores, swollen, soft as girl.



2.

Before the shrine, a garden: luminous
children like expensive litter dressed in plastic
scraps shredded slick, hair tangled, artful
imperfection in fluorescent ink. They
guard the gate like lions curling painted
on castle wall. Their mouths open and close
open-close like kimono print goldfish,
careless and costly. They see inside my eyes.

Inside I pull water from the well, deep
and narrow as a puncture wound. My hands
go numb from holding, pulled out of the warm
world somewhere cleaner. My tongue glitters frost.

Charms hang in rows like rainbow, embroidered
heavy with words of power and Hello
Kitty. Paired sets for couples, rounded breasts
or balls. Color-coded: pink and blue, but
inside: still foreign as burgers in teriyaki
sauce. Their drawstrings snarl, weave fidelity.
My mother makes my father take the pink one.

The fighting stops; my parents hold together
like omochi, New Year's cakes of pounded rice
you can chew for ten minutes and still choke.



3.

Older, I adored him; he brought another girl
to my party, knotted clover chains to crown
her, tangled in her doll's hair. All together,
we danced around a bonfire. I was only
a page away from Lord of the Flies. He
climbed a tree, ran up the trunk like fire;
I sat with his date's sister, silent, watched
them burn-never asked what she was thinking:
carbon, maybe, chemical bonds break down...

geneticist's daughter, my recipes were never
so straight forward. Later I found dried
clover on my pillow, sheets creased faint
with smoke, tang of uncertain night like doll's
hair wound all through my heart and lung. Careful-
quick I folded it, tied it up in silk:
Mine. I watch. I wait. I will take

my own gifts. Later I kissed her quick
as hawk striking, then slow as sunburn. Dry
clover tucked back in my closet, almost
dust--he'd gone to Florida, never came
back. You get the one you take--the one

you call like clover taking root in dark
soil, the one you tie into your hair
like smoke. Memory is strong as desire.



4.

Once upon a time before
I was born, me and my baby
lived in the Original Forest...

Last year the canyon burned. Ash
buried the trail we'd hiked: grey
Pompeii nested between peaks,
fewer casualties. Rangers
came when it only smoldered
like a friendly hearth, trees split
black-hard, but I remember
tangled green. How close the sky
from my father's slim shoulders,
how sunlight patched like stars fell
through to ground. In a canyon
you go down deep: rock never
solid as you think. I told
them I remembered green-black-
brown from the heart of the world
before time had no meaning
anyway. They laughed but they
still tell the story now. Ash
or no ash, I remember
green canyon and time before
time flickers in my head like
dim fire somewhere down deep.



5.

In flood season we went out
on the river. Trees tangled in the water
like a far country just past the bank:
isles of the blessed, half there, half not.
Past floodwall and over rocks,
through brush that caught our clothes like thorned
fingers, the river leapt joyous
and unstoppable as mountain's collapse; broken
trees strained to hold together
as he dared me to cross into that kingdom.
One careful step, another--
I perched over the rapids like mouse
or rat. He followed, then we walked in light
on branches that cupped our feet: cracked
hands that shadowed, fell--sun
obscured by jealous cloud, they let
me go. The mountain swallowed me. I grabbed
for him, for tree--anything, he pulled
me choking back to solid rock, bewildered
by the fact of weakness, coughing terrified
alive. The island cracked: Atlantis
plunged to waterfall, the trees spun all
apart. The world was dark. Years

later, there was no
room in him
for heart or lung;
whiskey gurgled
brackish as dark
water. He dreamed:
Atlantis falling,
the shore we never
reached, the sun
that left him
there. He never
gave me breath,
but I took it
all the same;
gave him


the drowning
I never
got.



6.

I dreamt you murdered, mulched
shallow through the rows: corn
silk caught in angled
eyelash like spider web--

but you lived: I burned
candles for your heart, breathed
each breath for you, gave
a doll your name; did I

burn your heart away?
Should have been more careful,
but I loved you like a swamp
sucks down everything. Zombies

come back feeling nothing
anymore. I'd lost your ghost:
left me rotted heart,
tangled eyelash like a warning--

the price of you was you;
dreams disregarded strike
back like snakes unseen.
Liquid murmur of your breath

betrayed lungs heavy
with venom; I brought you back
poisoned, unexpected: and fear
is the end of the snake charmer.



7.

my mother's watch:
sand-cast silver curled
to points of fire or thorn,
knots of binding... The Navajo
made it; the Navajo say
you cannot tell a lie
three times without it
setting, turning true.

two brothers:
I call them brothers because
boys are not so good
at survival, outnumber us at birth,
but die--my brothers
poured out red ribbons,
drowned in cherry currents of her

witch's hair:
she kept it long and free
from knots that bound--children
drain your blood and will,
anchor you to ground. Maidens
and those that pass for them
dream true in all the stories,
call thunder down to strike

their enemies:
hooked to her womb like nettle,
I wailed angry to be born--
took root in her desert and later
there were thorns. Three days
before they'd cut me out,
too good by then at holding
on, ready to call thunder.

poetry index