St. Francis of Assisi's Catholic Elementary School - the Playground

Whenever I tell the story

the most remarkable aspect,

to me, is the boy’s name -

Atley Gay - and how no one

ever said a word about it.

Imagine that - in a Catholic

school in the Midwest. I’ll

be damned. He even became

popular in high school. Back

then, he’d laugh about it and

liked to remind me of it, since

I had learned the correct ratio

of gloss to lip.

He’d begin, “Carrie -”

that’s what they called me,

“Carrie,” He would say,

“Do you remember that

time you punched me

in the face?” I would blush

beneath my dark curls,

pretend to be demure,

but the pink across my nose

was really about how he’d

begun in the middle.

It really began when he called

my friend fat. You see,

my friend was one half

of a set of fraternal twins.

The other half was a

pint-sized twig, also

my close friend. But he

has insulted the one

who wasn't there to face him.

I think that’s what made me

do it. If she would have been

there, maybe I would have

let her do it herself.

This was third grade.

On the play ground. I

was aiming for his nose,

but he moved a bit

so my fist met face

right on the cheek bone.

It’s because he moved,

didn't stand his ground,

that the motion propelled

him backwards, head first

into the yellow basketball

hop’s pole. It reverberated

all across the blacktop

like a gong. The soft

of a boy’s head rapturing

against hollow metal.

I still hear it’s echo

in the cat-calls I get

walking down the street.

He was knocked unconscious

and had a concussion

and was out of school

for a two days - maybe -

but when he came back,

he ran straight up to me

and let me feel the tangerine

sized bump on the back

of his head. He’s grown

his hair long now in his

college daze. But through

digital manifestations

of his image, I can see

how his locks cup around

the bump like two hands

trying to hold water.  

Life's Soup

My mother cut a piece of meat from her arm. Tears poured from her face and blood spilled on the floor.

My mother took her flesh and put it in the soup. She cooked magic in the ancient tradition  to cure her mother one last time.

-Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

Mother - your mother did it

properly and planted her

second heart in her

first born. Why you chose

to skip my sister, your first born,

fortune favored, star guided,

sloth whisperer, I’ll never know.

Instead I look inside

my chest and see that I

am you and your mother

before you. And I fought

it and yelled with all

my breath to create

my own voice from your

loaned lungs, but you

can always out scream

me and so we battle

for dominance, the wet

and the dry seasons,

typhoon and drought at

war yet always the same results

from opposing ends.

How can you ask me to cut

out the meat of my forearm

bath it in broth and feed it to you

after all this? After you bred

me to be your enemy, after

you beat me out me and painted

your face over mine, war paint

to warn the world that your life

will breathe on after your body

decays. You want the life saving

soup of the body you made to

replace your own, but I say

to you now in your own voice:

Get up, old woman,

this is not your deathbed yet.

A family poem

It was in the basement

where my sister and I - eight and six

respectively - chose sides. Catherine was

at my mother’s, and I sat at my father’s.

There the cats drew territorial lines

as well and beheld: a house divided

evenly.

I remember sharing my father’s lap

with the brown tabby cat who

didn't like to be touched, 'a shmoke

and a doke,' as my father said. Leaning

my head on the space between

his neck and shoulders, I breathed

his scent of musty books and aftershave

till 10 p.m. as Star Trek: Voyager bleeped

on the old TV.

There I decided that my father was a Vulcan

and my mother, a Klingon. To those

of you familiar with the Academy, you’ll

see their doomed fate clearly. To those

of you lacking, I shall say my father’s

stoism and my mother’s fever could never

be in a balance, could never intertwine,

less they be sharing an expensive dinner

on some island paradise accompanied

by a nice bottle of wine.

I like to think that vacation peace,

that honeymoon tranquility, that equal

understanding allowed my parents

to love before Catherine and I

learned to talk. Mostly me, I

suppose. We, our squeals,

our arguments, our play, our

bites, our laughs, our whines -

we took paradise and put up

parenthood.

But even before we youngens

matured and learned to speak

with our minds and hearts as one,

we had those simple moments

in the basement for an hour

later in the night than all our

classmates were allowed stay awake.

There, father and I (and reserved cat)

were piled, two on top of one and a foot

away, my mother and sisters (and the

better cat) side by side or leaning down

together.

In this dark wood paneled basement

with the dark teal carpeting and the

black window shutters shutting out

light from the stars and moon,

my family traversed the Gamma quadrant

in silent harmony. After our mission

was complete, I was carried upstairs

and Catherine crawled up them, on hands

and knees, matching the pace of

the good cat who would later join her

in bed.

At the close of the night, my mother

or father would stay in our room

and tell us a story or sing us to sleep.

They were never a duet and it was

more often my mother than my father -

perhaps it was those chosen sides

revealed by our seating arrangement,

I was always happier to listen to my

father’s low, hushed, quiver of a voice

and his tales of the adventures of our

two cats and what they do when we look

away.

But as the years past and we grew

(Catherine more so in height, I in…

call it: gene se qua) only my mother

stayed loyal to her place on the thick

green carpet, reading the American Girl

books or Harry Potter aloud. She became

much more to me than my rival and my

father was slowly pulled behind dark curtains,

one after the other.

Yet, here we all stand. Run
your hands across us, strum

us like a guitar. Listen. Do

you hear it? Our lineage stayed

strong.

All the Goat Dreams

There was once a girl who painted

a boy's black and white dreams

with pink and yellow and the deepest blue

bursting from the beak of a beating

humming bird dancing on the horn

of a goat, who sleepwalked to hear

his snores echo through the laundry shoot.

The goat was a genius and what was the hum

ing bird but a dream to dance

through the suns rays on a mist filled mourning.

Dizzy in the Rain

There I am, a mushroom in a storm,

trying to think of a poetic way

to say the streets have become a lake

and the rain is beating the waves

when the wind picks up and with my

mushroom cap, I can’t tell which way

it can be blowing and we sway

and become uprooted, cap reserved.

I, the mushroom elf, struggle

to right put my cap and then a snap

and my cap bends in like a sail

broken in a sea storm. Like the

flat fap on the belly of a senile cat,

who can’t jump off the bed anymore

without a crack in the joints.

What can a mushroom elf do,

but venture on through the lake,

transforming stem and hump

into beige rain boots and canvas

backpack and take sanctuary

in the classroom above the library.

The Dolls

1

With her last will

and testament

my aunt left me

a china doll

with hair of golden

curl and baby blue

eyes.

2

As a child she was locked

away behind glass

and cherry wood. I tried

to lift a sippy cup

to wet her un-

blinking eyes.

3

I was four years old,

playing in my cousin’s

bedroom when

I found the mutilated

doll.

She was naked

and had crayon

scribbled over her body.

I couldn’t count

the bruises of purple,

red, and green.

Her hair had been hacked

off and some pulled

out to reveal the holes

drilled in her head. Her

feet were cut off, jagged ends, to

reveal how her legs were hollow.

Her hands were chewed

flat, marked by bumpy

molars. Her eyes

had been punctured

by a pen, blue ink stained

scleras.

I wrapped her head in toilet

paper and made a chair

out of legos, four wheels

to give her back the wind

in her holes. I couldn’t cover

her eyes because I

wanted her to know

it was okay to cry.

My mother found her and

took her away. My aunt’s

daughter died that same day

I was carried to the white room

and made to talk to a lady

with black glasses and thin pencil

lips. Why’d you do that

to dolly?

That’s when all the dolls

got locked away and Auntie

came by to rock me in her arms

and cry into my hair.

I used to knock

on my legs to hear

if they were hollow

and bite my fingers

to trace the dents in my skin

but they never

bruised.

4

That was all

a long time ago and I

never told them she

wasn’t mine. Holding

that china doll I thought:

beneath those pretty curls

are the holes that are drilled

into all our heads, where

we hide the tears of the dead.