A Palimpsest

"Never again will a single story be told as if it is the only one."
                                                                                      ~ John Berger


1

It's possible to see the underlying 
geography once you find a corner 
that frays against touch—

Under the PLU of Red
Delicious apples, under their waxed 
skins in crates at the PX market—

On streetcorners 
where shoe-shine boys snapped
their cotton rags sharp as any chamois—

Though I admit it was lost on me then
why my father wanted to point out,
when he went for a haircut,

the Koken barber chairs 
with reclining backs and porcelain
armrests, shipped all the way 

from St. Louis, MO in the 1900s
(the year of manufacture engraved
on the iron trestle); or how it happened 

that his best friend Don Alfredo
lived among us, cutting and lighting cigars 
as he worked in the cave of his basement

office at Sky View Restaurant 
and Mezzanine. Look, we are not 
the dregs of empire. We know a roast

beef sandwich or a hamburger
is not as good as lengua or a whole
pig skewered over a fire. 

We know a pearl or piece of ore grifted
from these hills, despite their shine
suddenly withheld from us.