Via Negativa

suspends from an edge
the way sometimes
we hold our breath—
what is coming? what new
uncertainty lies ahead?
My heel brushed against
the cold porcelain rim
of the tub where the flat
body of a roach lay
upside down. That slight
feeling papered my day
as I made several calls to find
a therapist for my child,
as I revised the stations
of routine and improvised.
In the waiting times
I tore the wilted leaf
off the blue orchid
in the pot and set
the timer to cook
brown rice. Where steam
escapes it is important
to keep the valves clean.
Fingerprints, yes.
But barely a trace
of humidity on the glass.

Jueyin Pericardium Channel of Hand (手厥阴心包经)

Collective rustle preceding
what ruptures. Then smoke, then shattered glass.

And the day was just beginning—
its many layers coming off one by one,

deposited into grey plastic bins rolling
through the machine and its X-ray eyes:

the shoes, the coats and jackets,
the travelers’ embroidered saris,

the babies’ pacifiers and milk sachets,
the folding strollers with fluorescent handles.

Step into the vestibule
with the clear revolving panel to be scanned.

Plant your feet on the shadowed outlines. Raise your hands
and cross them, wrist over wrist, above your head.

You never know.
That tremble beneath the balcony perimeter

around the lounge area? Anger from the liver.
Fear from the kidneys. Grief from the lungs.

You never know.
They said they knew that it was coming, just

not when. The day was just beginning. The heart
is never ready for such shocks.

In the chart of the pericardium meridian,
a branch descends, passing through the diaphragm

to the upper, middle, and lower burners.
In the chart fixed with ancient symbols,

the hand that carries out any action
is one station on the track.

The ordinary heart comes
with a sheath to contain the wildness

of its fires and energies. A myth
is not fiction. You never know

until it comes true. A vest
laced tight around the middle of the chest

explodes itself (children too) and other bodies.
You ache because you never know. You wish

the third eye could open.
Every casualty a point

vibrating its significance. Rupture
after rupture in the sightless narrative of time.

Afternoons, women swept heaps of leaves beneath the guava trees and burned them. They kept an eye on their small fires, smoked cigarettes, took the laundry off the line. Evening came swiftly, a large bat wing unfurling dusky purple over rooftops. Lizards slid down the walls to kiss the ground. In the dirty kitchen by the shed, the maids lit kerosene stoves and chopped onions on nicked wooden boards. Craning their necks they could see the evening show on TV through the side window. We played in the dirt at their feet, tied string to beetles’ legs, goaded them to whirring flight. We ladled steamed rice into chicken broth, traced with spoons the limp outlines of squash blossoms that just hours ago baked in the sun by our feet.

In the middle of the first
floor lobby at the mall, crowds
thinning out, near closing time—
a toddler in an oversized sweatshirt

and a pink tutu is twirling. She steps
toward the fountain arcing thin jets
of water into the air, waving her arms,
wanting to know the secret power

of what appears then disappears
only to reappear again. She trips
over her feet, windmills her arms
and lumbers around as if drunk: tiny

dervish whirling in a hidden
ecstasy. And I know: this is what I wish
for you, and you, and you, all my loves—
for the little bones of the ear

to never stop vibrating to waves
of light and pleasure that have always
been there, long before any sad
miasma came to roost in the rafters,

endlessly picking at the dark
plums of fear and unhappiness
as if this was the only food
left in the world.

“wings over the water/ where I am drowning…” ~ D. Bonta

is the name they give
to all we try to do

if only to outwit
the cunning gods.
I too would spend

my lifetime stringing
feathers, devising with wax
and twine a way to bear

my child out of the depths—
A spool of thread to barter
a trail into and back

out of the labyrinth,
one amber drop
of honey to lure

the tethered ant into
and through the nautilus’
swirling depths.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Lake effect.