Dear father, the dreams don't come anymore. I don't see
the hems of your bathrobe trailing along the wooden floor,
or hear your heavy footfalls circling the house
perimeter. Salt remains salt in the shaker, and door
hinges sing only to themselves that old echo of close-
open-close-open. I draw the chain and fix the locks
before going to bed each night. Dear mother, water trickles
from the taps and fills each bottle we will drink from
in summer. The roses have shriveled because it's still
winter. The grass is ashen. I remember how many cups
of milk and flour, how much sugar. The hen gives up
its eggs and settles back into the straw. Where you are,
I wonder if birds fly to follow the seasons, if the sun
rises and the moon sets; if you dunk a piece of bread
in a cup of coffee and chew it slowly before swallowing.
Villanelle: Diasporic Time
Decades pass as if in the blink of an eye:
remember the day we found the coffee table
in the thrift shop, among boxes of broken tile?
We thought we'd be here only for so long,
putting up with one bad rental then another---
Decades passed as if in the blink of an eye.
In a dog-eared copy of Heraclitus I keep going back
to that passage about stepping into the same river twice. But
in the thrift shop you find useful things in boxes of broken tile.
That's how immigrants slowly build the landscapes of a life--
desk, lamp, chair: new bits mixed with pieces others cast
away. Then decades pass as if in the blink of an eye.
Remember the filthy basement with rundown laundry machines,
the drafty windows we taped with plastic in the winter? Odds
and ends in the thrift shop, among boxes of broken tile.
Every effort costs at least twice more when you
have lives and loves in more than one place on
the earth. How did decades pass so quickly? Stories
in the thrift shop, among boxes of broken tile.
On the first day of the rest of my life
(Lord’s day). Up, and put on a new black cloth suit to an old coate that I make to be in mourning at Court, where they are all, for the King of Spayne. To church I, and at noon dined well, and then by water to White Hall, carrying a captain of the Tower (who desired his freight thither); there I to the Parke, and walked two or three turns of the Pell Mell with the company about the King and Duke; the Duke speaking to me a good deal. There met Lord Bruncker and Mr. Coventry, and discoursed about the Navy business; and all of us much at a loss that we yet can hear nothing of Sir Jeremy Smith’s fleete, that went away to the Streights the middle of December, through all the storms that we have had since, that have driven back three or four of them with their masts by the board.
Yesterday come out the King’s Declaration of War against the French, but with such mild invitations of both them and the Dutch to come over hither with promise of their protection, that every body wonders at it.
Thence home with my Lord Bruncker for discourse sake, and thence by hackney coach home, and so my wife and I mighty pleasant discourse, supped and to bed. The great wound I had Wednesday last in my thumb having with once dressing by Mrs. Turner’s balsam been perfectly cured, whereas I did not hope to save my nail, whatever else ill it did give me.
My wife and I are much thoughtfull now-a-days about Pall’s coming up in order to a husband.
put on a new black suit
in mourning for the loss
of storms that have driven me
invitations to wonder
and the great wound
I did not hope to save
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 11 February 1666.
Triolet: The Weeping of the Glaciers
Temperatures swing from one extreme to another:
Triolet: Climate change by Luisa A. Igloria
What bubbles beneath may destroy us:
the ancients warned about the dangers
of suppression. I think of the underside
of Antartica and the weeping of the glaciers.
What bubbles beneath may destroy us:
my floorboards sit two feet
above the sea level that is rising.
What bubbles beneath may destroy us:
what we bring forth may save us.
The House Where 41 Girls Burned
Virgen de Asuncion Hogar Seguro: Virgin ascending to the sky,
away from the home that should have been safe for girls.
Virgin wrapped in blue flame, in smoke, in the old
yellow of piss stains on dirty mattresses where girls
crowded in the dark, begging to be let out. There is a joke
about waifs who run around the pier at night: small girls
pulling on the sleeves of drunk servicemen on shore leave--
you want a virgin, yes? I take you to my mother. These girls
and what they've seen and known of life. What did I
know at nine, ten, or even at sixteen? These girls,
without a chance at a different life outside the door that
shut them in. The match that lit the fire that burned these girls.
Interloper
Up, and to the office. At noon, full of business, to dinner. This day comes first Sir Thomas Harvy after the plague, having been out of towne all this while. He was coldly received by us, and he went away before we rose also, to make himself appear yet a man less necessary. After dinner, being full of care and multitude of business, I took coach and my wife with me. I set her down at her mother’s (having first called at my Lord Treasurer’s and there spoke with Sir Ph. Warwicke), and I to the Exchequer about Tangier orders, and so to the Swan and there staid a little, and so by coach took up my wife, and at the old Exchange bought a muffe, and so home and late at my letters, and so to supper and to bed, being now-a-days, for these four or five months, mightily troubled with my snoring in my sleep, and know not how to remedy it.
in this cold rose
a moth
having a sleep
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 10 February 1666.
Cruise lines
Up, and betimes to Sir Philip Warwicke, who was glad to see me, and very kind. Thence to Colonell Norwood’s lodgings, and there set about Houblons’ business about their ships. Thence to Westminster, to the Exchequer, about my Tangier business to get orders for tallys, and so to the Hall, where the first day of the Terme, and the Hall very full of people, and much more than was expected, considering the plague that hath been. Thence to the ‘Change, and to the Sun behind it to dinner with the Lieutenant of the Tower, Colonell Norwood and others, where strange pleasure they seem to take in their wine and meate, and discourse of it with the curiosity and joy that methinks was below men of worthe. Thence home, and there very much angry with my people till I had put all things in good forwardnesse about my supper for the Houblons, but that being done I was in good humour again, and all things in good order. Anon the five brothers Houblons come and Mr. Hill, and a very good supper we had, and good company and discourse, with great pleasure. My new plate sets off my cupboard very nobly. Here they were till about eleven at night with great pleasure, and a fine sight it is to see these five brothers thus loving one to another, and all industrious merchants. Our subject was principally Mr. Hill’s going for them to Portugall, which was the occasion of this entertainment. They gone, we to bed.
ships full of plague and pleasure
take their meat people all about
to see these others
loving and industrious
for entertainment
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 9 February 1666.
Pantoum: The Long March
Something like the wind moved overhead, a kind of call;
so we collected ourselves, prepared to press forward again.
How long we've been on this road-- too long to remember:
travelers bonded in history by blood and circumstance.
So we collected ourselves, prepared to press forward again,
the clamor in the streets changing throughout the day.
Travelers bonded in history by blood and circumstance,
exchanging coins for bread, sinews for building stones.
The clamor in the streets changed through the day---
Rooster crow, pickaxes in the dirt, high whine of planes.
Exchanging coins for bread, sinews for building stones,
until the hills and forest line came into view.
Rooster crow, pickaxes in the dirt, high whine of planes:
receding wall of tiki torches lit with their angry glow.
Until the hills and forest line came into view,
we rode in silence. We listened to the bards and singers
douse with song those tiki torches lit with angry yellow.
A brightness streaked through the sky, gold as our hope.
We'd borne so much in silence, listening to bards and singers.
Something like the wind moved overhead, a kind of call.
Wren
Up, and all the morning at the office. At noon to the ‘Change, expecting to have received from Mr. Houbland, as he promised me, an assignment upon Viner, for my reward for my getting them the going of their two ships to Tangier, but I find myself much disappointed therein, for I spoke with him and he said nothing of it, but looked coldly, through some disturbance he meets with in our business through Colonell Norwood’s pressing them to carry more goods than will leave room for some of their own. But I shall ease them. Thence to Captain Cocke’s, where Mr. Williamson, Wren, Boldell and Madam Williams, and by and by Lord Bruncker, he having been with the King and Duke upon the water to-day, to see Greenwich house, and the yacht Castle is building of, and much good discourse. So to White Hall to see my Lord Sandwich, and then home to my business till night, and then to bed.
all morning the cold
woods sing
where a wren bold by the water
is building a home
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 8 February 1666.
Sweetelle: A Telling
They want to know what I would gain from telling of this now:
how buttons were fingered, how my pants were pulled quickly down.
How the second time, the man who'd become my uncle said
Be quiet or I'll hurt you, every single one of you.
They want to know what I would gain from telling of this now:
I had no words then for what was done to me in secret;
I'm from a country where women supposedly don't own
a voice; and children are better seen, if at all, than heard.
Decades have passed; the guilt and shame not mine, and yet, and yet--
they want to know what I would gain from telling of this now.