torn photograph of my abuelo
“Untitled” by Malaquias Montoya smart
phone theater programs my father’s
gold watch boxed up photographs lap-
top Fair Oaks the Mission Noe Valley
skateboard Mandorla The New Yorker
Venus in Fur Sex with Strangers a few
DVDs Azul PALABRA I was a short
skinny boy Midnight in Paris Yuba Poppie
depression My Vocabulary Did This to Me
POEM WITH CITATIONS FROM THE O.E.D.
First: voz because I recall the taste
of beans wrapped in a corn
tortilla—someone brings it
to me, retrieves what’s left
on the plate, the murmured vowels
taking root, taking hold—mi
lengua materna. Then later learn
another spelling, label the “box”
where sound’s produced, draw too
the tongue, the teeth, the lips. The voyce
that is dysposid to songe and melody
hath thyse proprytees: smalle,
subtyll, thicke, clere, sharpe . . .
in 1398. But what
of the deaf-mute, his winning shout
—BINGO!—knocking me over?
Huxley noted: voice may exist
without speech and speech may exist
without voice. The first time I spoke
with my father was on the phone, so his
was all I had to go on: that,
and what he’d say—things he’d hear
“inside.” In Doctor’s Dilemma
Shaw wrote: When my patients
tell me they hear voices
I lock them up. The pitch, the tone, the range:
a way of trying to know him. Now hers
and his are in the pages of a book:
Un baile de máscaras by Sergio
Ramírez, his characters echoing
words, rhythms I heard
until she died, hearing them as well
for months after whenever I spoke
with him. Who hath not shared that calm
so still and deep, The voiceless thought
which would not speak but weep
POSTCARD
Blue sky the Bay
Bridge from afar
arcing like a bow
to Treasure Island
—city skyline
scoring a view
tourists could buy
at Fisherman’s Wharf
but for the smudge
clouding the tip
of the Pyramid; panels
deflecting the sun
glint through, as if a beacon
shrouded in fog
were blinking a code
to this green slope: park
named after a mission:
DoloresDolores
—it simmers on my tongue, is
Pains in Spanish, is
her name. And beyond the grass
a dark-haired woman
crouching in the sand
saying to a boy
¡Sácate los dedos
de la boca!
Take your fingers
out of your mouth!
REASONS WHY SHE DIDN’T
stay. Pavement
was one. And doors—
a front door
beyond which
24th & Mission
blared. The preacher
at the BART
station’s concrete
lip seemed odd
to her—the way
most mornings he
was pretty much
ignored. Mamá
is arm in arm
with her: a walk
she’ll take
on her own in
Tipitapa
FAR AWAY
(Rubén Darío)
Ox I saw
as a child, breath
little clouds
of steam, vivid
in the sun, Nicaragua
a fertile ranch
abundant, rhythms
tropic, dove in a forest
of sound—wind,
bird, bull, ax:
the core
of me are these
and these I praise
yes, ox: lumbering
you evoke tender
dawn, the milking hour
when days were white
and rose, and you
cooing mountain
dove recall
April May
when spring
was all was
everything
JUGGLERS
She and I on a bench peeling prawns:
the first day of her fiftieth year and she points
at street performers about to juggle
fire, and a distant summer morning
surfaces, afloat on the light wind blowing
off the bay—older sisters in the dark, hiding
as big brother parades around the house
his hands outstretched clutching large candles
I’m on a search! he shouts,
marching from room to room
till he finds them huddling in a jungle
of clothes, beacons flickering as flame-
hot wax begins to flow across his fingers
while she is walking to Centro Adulto, her head brimming
with phrases: the words she needs so she can quit
sewing, land a job in a bank . . . and the sitter
arriving minutes late, finding us wet
and trying to save a coat, a shirt, a dress—it’s
a small one: nothing the green hose
and frantic assembly-line of buckets
doesn’t eventually douse, leaving walls and curtains
the color of coal—¡Mira! she gasps
her left hand rapping my shoulder, still pointing with the right
as the torches,
from one juggler to the other,
begin to fly
for my mother (1932–1997)
PHOTO, 1945
The only photo of you, black and white
and torn—the frayed edge
climbing your chest, just missing
your left eye, cutting
off your ear: only your face
was spared. The link
is your daughter, youngest
of eleven. Lifting
the hem of her cotton dress
above her knees, she lowers herself
onto pebbles and beans
you’ve carefully arranged
on the ground. Sitting nearby
you raise your head, peering
over the pages of La Prensa
to discipline a child with your eyes:
until you think she’s had enough,
she kneels perfectly still.
Later, you rise from your chair
and stretch, noting in the distance
a slice of sun, how it hovers
over Momotombo, smearing fire
across a jagged horizon:
time for drinks and a game
of cards, when a certain mood
seeps into your skin—hurry, they’re waiting
for you to deal the first hand.
Summer air laced with insect
sounds soon fills
with the small bells of Pedro’s
approaching cart, peddling the ice
he scrapes and then flavors
with syrup. Knowing you well, she
scrambles to the table,
your chair, but you’re ahead of her:
having heard the jingling too,
you’ve set aside a few córdobas
next to your tin cup of beer.
Your large dark hand cups
the back of my mother’s head
as you kiss her forehead
in front of your friends, pressing
the coins into her palm. Abuelo,
/> I’m holding you
in my fingers—a broken window
you gaze from, a face
I’ve never really seen,
or touched.
Foto, 1945
La única foto de ti, en blanco y negro
y rota—el borde desgastado
escalando tu pecho, rozando
tu ojo izquierdo, cortando
tu oreja: sólo tu cara
se salvó. El lazo
es tu hija, la más joven
de once. Subiéndose
el vestido de algodón
por encima de las rodillas, dobla
sus piernas sobre los guijarros y frijoles
que con cuidado has
esparcido en la tierra. Sentado cerca
levantas la cabeza, asomándote
por encima de La Prensa
para disciplinar a una niña con tu mirada:
hasta que creas que ha sido suficiente
se queda arodillada sin moverse.
Luego, te levantas de tu silla
y te estiras, notando en la distancia
una tajada de sol, y cómo se cierne
sobre Momotombo, untando fuego
a lo largo del horizonte montañoso:
hora de echarse unos tragos
y una partida, cuando un cierto humor
se mete bajo tu piel. Apúrate,
esperan que repartas las cartas.
Aire veraniego se mezcla con sonidos
de insectos, llenándose pronto
con las campanillas del carrito
de Pedro, que se acerca con su hielo
para raspar y añadir sabor
de frutas. Conociéndote bien, ella
corre hacia la mesa
a tu silla, pero te le has adelantado:
habiendo oído también el tintineo
has apartado unos cuantos córdobas
junto a tu tarro de cerveza.
Tu gran mano moreno sujeta por detrás
la cabeza de mi madre
al besarle la frente
delante de tus amigos, apretando
las monedas en su palma. Abuelo,
te tengo
entre mis dedos—una ventana
rota por la que atisbas: una cara
que nunca he visto
de verdad, ni he tocado.
GLORIA’S
San Francisco, the ’60s
In the photograph, my father has his back to the camera. He’s leaning forward reaching down, about to lift a shuttered metal security door. His dress shirt is slightly untucked, the sleeves bunched at the elbow. Gloria’s, a second-hand clothing store, is named after his second wife, who was born in El Salvador.
It’s my sister Maria’s freshman year at Immaculate Conception Academy. After school, she hops on the 14 and rides to the Outer Mission in San Francisco to shop at the store. She usually picks out one item—a scarf, a belt, a blouse. When she tries handing my father her dollar bills, he waves them away. For her, it’s an excuse to visit him two, three times a month. Conceived in Nicaragua, Maria is my father’s firstborn. She was ten when he left.
After our mother’s funeral decades later, my siblings and I share family stories and Maria says that Gloria often seemed sad—the blank expression on her face hiding something, perhaps. Gloria often wore large dark glasses.
Some days, Maria takes us along and all four of us visit our father. I walk down a corridor of bins that are as tall as I am, brimming with “the bargains,” as opposed to the slacks and sweaters and dresses that hang from racks. The word “Gloria’s” is thickly printed on blue wooden paneling above the doorway outside, a rainbow brightly depicted beside it. One afternoon, Gloria is holding in her arms an infant with black unruly hair.
And then there’s this: a short wrinkled woman, unmoving, just visible in the back. Whether she’s sitting or standing I can’t tell. Someone whispers her name is Juana. Someone whispers she’s Dad’s mom. I have no memory of her speaking. Maria, on the other hand, does: on a day Gloria isn’t in the store, on a day my father is busy on the phone, Maria, tentative, approaches her and says, Hola. The wrinkled woman speaks:
Why do you keep coming here? Can’t you see he has a new family? There’s no need for you or the others to drop by. I know what you’re up to. ¡Vete! And don’t come back.
My father replaces the receiver and sees Maria lift her hand to her mouth, swivel, and swiftly head for the door. “What’s wrong,” he calls out, in pursuit. “¿Qué te pasa?” as he catches up and holds her by the arm. Maria, without looking up, tells him, her voice unsteady. “Ay don’t pay any attention to her,” he sneers. “¡Es una vieja loca!”
ERNESTO CARDENAL IN BERKELEY
1982
The books in my backpack
felt lighter walking
down the stairs at 24th & Mission. The sky
was clear and I wasn’t heading for school . . .
Above, at the station’s mouth, a preacher
wove Spanish while beyond him
on the ground a whiskered man
snored through the morning, his trousers
soiled. A thought flickered, swayed
(Rubén Darío in Madrid . . . ) as I rode
east along the floor
of the bay; commuters dozed,
later did crosswords going home, more
of them boarding at Embarcadero,
Montgomery, Powell. After
the reading I was a notebook
filled—mamá y papá juntos a different
life billowing inside me:
a dusty street in Granada
or León, playing baseball;
or picturing in class how
Francisco Hernández de Córdoba
is led across the plaza he himself
had traced out with his sword,
beheaded
BLISTER
the noun
A disease
of the peach tree
—a fungus
distorts leaves.
The first time
I was taken
to see him
I was five
or six. A vesicle
on the skin
containing
serum, caused
by friction,
a burn, or other
injury. He lived
on Alabama Street
near Saint
Peter’s and wore
a white T-shirt,
starched and snug.
A similar swelling
with fluid
or air
on the surface
of a plant,
or metal
after cooling
or the sunless
area between
one’s toes
after a very
long walk.
Don’t ask me
how it is I
ended up
holding it.
An outer
covering
fitted to a
vessel to protect
against torpedos,
mines, or to improve
stability. My guess
is that he
brought it out
to show me
thinking, perhaps,
I had never
seen one
up close,
let alone felt
the blunt weight
of one
in my hands.
A rounded
compartment
protruding
from the body
of a plane.
What came
next: no
image but
sensation of
its hammer
(my inexpert
manipulation)
digging
into but not
breaking
skin—the spot
at the base
of my thumb
balloons,
&n
bsp; filling slowly
with fluid . . .
In Spanish:
ampolla
—an Ampul
of chrystal
in the Middle
Ages could be
a relic containing
the blood
of someone
holy. I’m fairly
certain it wasn’t
loaded.
CALLE MOMOTOMBO
Managua, the ’50s
I
Nights, I step
in, take a seat
beside her
sewing machine,
stay until one,
two, platicando—
cómo me encanta
la madrugada.
Months leading
up to Christmas
blur, filling
orders—vestidos,
camisas, skirts. We
leave the door
open and greet
who strolls up,
down the street. Nada
de peligro,
safe
II
They’re tending el puesto
Yolanda, Sandra, Conchita . . .
And since I’m Lolita’s
novio, I say, ¿Dónde
está? She’s inside
doing the dishes
—all I need to know:
como un gato I tiptoe
towards her, the faucet
more spring than
faucet, the incessant
sound of water
masking my steps—
soft, soft from behind
until I raise both
hands and curl
my arms firmly
around, cover
her eyes, envuelto
en mis brazos,
her back up
against my chest
—tight. Of course
she knows: no one