PROFILE

I gotta get back on top of posting on Thursdays.  I apologize.

In the meantime, here's the poem I did at the APIA Spoken Word Summit, and at the Woosh K August Slam. I feel like I've been working on this poem for a year, in different drafts, but it was never clear to me what I wanted to say, so it was never clear to anyone what it said.  I think I've finally got it, or come close, for this poem at least.  Love to my adoptees, and love to my birthmother.

PROFILE
8/4/11

I wish my birth mother
had Facebook.

If she had Facebook,
my newsfeed would repeat her name
and I could know how many carrots she cut for dinner.
How the sun kisses her and skins her and calls it summer.
Whether work is slow,
     or alive and steaming,
     when it’s not just a dark square on the street and we are in a taxi pointing,
     when she is counting the till at night
     and mixing sugar into the kimchi.

She could poke me. I could poke her back.

If my birth mother had Facebook
I could know her favorite quotations.
Is she a live life to the fullest, don’t look back kind of lady?
Is she stuck in song lyrics?
     Home
     Let me come home
     Home is wherever I’m with you.
Or is she obsessed with love like it’s a blessing worth repeating?
Maybe she left it blank, like I do, because there are too many words that lift us in this world and it’s hard to nail them down.

I would stalk her mobile uploads:
samgyetang on the first dog day of summer,
her son, stooped by a street vendor, buying onions and tea.
Cabbage and radishes stretching into her corner garden,
a couple, squished together on the subway,
her new shoes.
An entire album of little moments,
her moments,
the ones she has to save.
And the glow of my screen would catch my smile
as I got to know her.

Would we both
have a photo of the fog
soaking up the sun,
like the bright haze could lift our own shadows.
Is there only one sky,
showing up on both our profiles
over and over across the ocean?

If we were Facebook friends
she wouldn’t have to call me at 4am to tell me that she’s sorry.
We wouldn’t have to blubber in broken Korean about how wholesome we’re eating.
She wouldn’t have to let her tears out, I wouldn’t have to receive them,
she could just post on my wall that she loves me, and I could “like” it.

We could invite each other to events we can’t attend and Facebook could send us birthday reminders

would my mother curse the screen every august 13th like an annual birth pain?
would Facebook remind her to breathe?

If there was Facebook on the night I was born, my mother could have asked for more courage.
Her friends commenting that they hoped everything was okay,
sending light and love
and my naked mother holding me on her blood stained floor,
skin to skin,
my fist clenched around her finger,
us, weeping together
and still a secret.

Someone, somewhere, would say a prayer for her.

Maybe she would have 811 friends.
Maybe she would have ten.
Maybe she would have closed her account,
closed her doors,
closed her heart, her laughter, her words.

Maybe there isn’t really anything to say
when you’re dressing your baby for the last time.

But I want to know.
I want to be a mobile upload, too precious to forget.
I want to hear her quaint descriptions:
how long is the train ride to the city?
what is the woman next to her reading?
does she get lost in seoul?

I want to follow her check-ins:
to the payphone,
to the social worker’s apartment.
to the alley outside, where she threw up a piece of her.

I want more than an apology.
I want to know what I was wearing.
I want to know what I was doing, what my mother’s eyes looked like as she said goodbye.
What song was playing on the radio?
How many other mothers were in that black book,
sat on that sinking couch,
handed their children away
in return for their hope?

for how long did she sleep that night?
Has she woken up
yet.

Mother,
time-drenched broken mother,
let’s not wait another 21 years for a birthday party.
for you to teach me what it means to prepare your skin at night,
to scrub our bodies before bed,
to measure a red hanbok around my waist,
and feed me a lifetime of meals in one sitting.

Forgivable mother,
this is a friend request
from a stranger,

this is a friend request
from your daughter.

WHAT I SHOULD'VE SAID

One time I was sort of seeing this guy.  After one kiss, he blessed me with a long speech about how he needed to know what I wanted because he didn't want to be a father.  This totally pissed me off, which you should never do to a poet, because then they'll just write about you (a line I learned from Bao Phi).  I dedicate this poem to all men who date single moms, because NEWSFLASH, we don't need you like you think we need you.

WHAT I SHOULD’VE SAID
for men that date single moms

Do you
think
I am the kind of woman
who lets love storm her judgment?
The kind of woman
who saves spaces in her sky for any
bird who kisses her?

Do you
think
I’m the kind of lover
who doesn’t respect men enough
to have favorites?
The kind of lover
who is so lonely
she’s forgetful?

What kind of mother do you think I am
that I would think
my son needs the kind of father
you think you are,
who considers this family a charity,
like we accept any donation?

HOW A ZOMBIE MAKES A PROMISE

Even as the buildings twisted,

his lips did not miss an inch,

his kisses like concrete,

slabbed against my skin,

his hands,

pulling through the wet cement

digging our initials in,

drawing a heart before I would harden.

I could hear the sirens,

the shrill sounds of last breaths,

a panicked serpent stabbing  through the streets.

But he, he was a light of urgency,

a flash come my way,

like a gift in the blackout.

Of course

I was not blinded, I was blessed.

We were a mess of undone buttons,

zippers, jaws ripped open,

their teeth a bite softer than ours.

This is how a zombie makes a promise.

He whispers,

lets his tongue curl around you,

knots his limbs through yours,

grabs you eternal,

makes love like the world is ending.

When you remember to open your eyes,

you will see flames through the doorway.

When you remember to leave

to run

to be rescued

the humble floor will start to quiver.

He will sniff the pink in your flesh,

supposing how many tulips are left inside.

Your scream will be morning birds to him.

He may even hum along for a moment

as he buckles his belt at the rumbling dusk,

or he may scavenge for you, hungry,

depending on which side of the rubble he wakes up on.

Well, it’s been five hundred and forty seven days

and I have got to get out of this fuckin fortress.

This brick building made of mud, stone, and my

angry

terrified

perseverant

insatiable

joyful

spit.

Stocked with ramen and green beans and chips,

every door every crack

in my house is combination padlocked.

I have a child,

he has forgotten the word for stars.

Every now and then the zombie taps on my window with

a wink and a frothy smile.

He is running free.

He can smell the sweet cedar.

He can waste time in the moon.

He could break something, he could make something, the world is his

He has an ax in his shoulder, he doesn’t even notice.

I have a house full of ammo and more heart than I need to kill him,

but he isn’t afraid of me.

Those days,

those days

I can’t remember if I’m undead

or a survivor.

IN MY NEXT LIFE

Me (procrastinating): in my next life i wont write haiku. i'll write five line poems. they are so much easier.
Rico: you can do that like next week, why wait for another life?

So then I wrote this, you know, as long as I was brainstorming stuff I might not get done next week. 


IN MY NEXT LIFE

In my next life
I will drive to work on an elephant,
start my days from up high.
The ride will not be smooth.
I will give thanks to the ground.

In my next life
they will call me Chef Squid,
my ten arms will swing around the kitchen,
the average human eye will not keep up with the
tantalizing twist of my tentacles,
I will chop like a humming bell,
I will saute on high heat,
vegetables will cry for their mothers.

I will be a mother
with two spines.
The sky
will not be enough to scare me.

The continents will have moved together,
the land may have quivered at each other’s touch,
we may have lost lives in our unity.

So in my next one

I will catch every wedding bouquet,
fold their petals into cranes.
When I have one thousand
I will wish for a snowstorm.
I will hang my heart on an icicle
and wait for a wanderer to see it
flicker.
I will be safe by then.
I will be a shelter.

A REMINDER FOR FATHERS WHO HAVE FORGOTTEN THEY ARE FATHERS

Sometimes I weep in his absence,
at dinner, when I call for our son upstairs and
he slides down our family backwards,
his young oak smile, wise in its open knot
as he runs to me, just a girl in the kitchen
that he mistakes for the ground.

This wood flute we made together,
I weep for him, his fleeting songs,
for this poem, undeserving of words,
for the headless horseback fathers,
stabbing into the dark with dull memories,
content with becoming ghosts.

Yet my child, son of the wind,
blows around the room a boundless toddler,
collector of questions,
and he asks none
of his mother’s love,
pausing only seconds
for these promising kisses,

for he is tear-free and peaceful,
and he has no sense of loss.

MADE

My friend NaHaan was telling me one day how he thinks there should not be a difference between poetry we write and poetry we speak, so whenever we speak, it should still be poetry. So sometimes I throw poems into our fb conversations.

CONVERSATION WITH MY SON

Now that my son's talking more, I wanna start a new "poem" series called CONVERSATIONS WITH MY SON.  Here's a couple to get it going.

#1: Dreams
[Son wakes up]

Son: Ishaw Ishaw Eshaw Ishaw

Me: You saw?
Son: Ishaw!

Me: What did you see?

Son: Ball.

Me: You saw a ball? [son nods] What else did you see?

Son: Moose. Cheese.

[age 20 months]

#2: Mama’s Boy
Me: Hey Sun, can I get a hug?
Son: Trucks!
Me: You want to play with your trucks? [son nods]. Can I get a hug first?
Son: No. Trucks.

[age 20 months]

CARHARTS, RAIN JACKET

CARHARTS, RAIN JACKET
after Cake’s “Short Skirt, Long Jacket”

I want a man with constellations in his ear drums.
I want a man with long attention.
I want a man who is not sure what to order,
treats the waitress like a princess, and leaves a big tip.

I want a man with intercultural charisma. 
who loves like he means business
and makes last requests.
He is not afraid to get dirty:
He is covered in fish guts,
He is fist up in protest,
and knee deep in my heart.

I want a man with carharts and a rainnnnn jacket.

I want a man with a waterproof smile.
I want a man who always knows where we are.
I want a man who has time for breakfast
who got something scrambled and sees the sunny side up.
He brings home the bacon.
And flowers and hitchhikers and cellphone pictures of the sea.

He is not afraid to get dirty:
He is covered in fish guts,
He is fist up in protest,
and knee deep in my heart.

I want a man with carharts and a rainnnnn ...rainn...... jacket.

I want a man with a marathon imagination
I want a man with bare feet on the earth
He is walking by me at Fred Meyer, he has somewhere to go,
he is in a hurry but he asks me my name.

He is well dressed for a Friday.
He is buying onions, tomatoes, and oreo cookies.
He asks my son for a fist pound and
says he loves this weather, partly cloudy, fifty five.

I want a man with carharts and a rainnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn jacket.

ADVICE

Dear women,
Get him now, while he is still a hopeless romantic.
Now, while he will still cross the nation for you.
Now, while he wraps memories in flowers,
while his heart still has room,
while he is in the mood to find words in your hair,
braid them together on a roadside,
on a boat,
in a basement
somewhere.
There, at that moment,
should you have a chance,
you should love him.

Haiku Stand stuff

Ok I've been slackin the last few weeks what with preppin for the show/trip to Minneap, then traveling, then getting back into the swing of regular life.  But! I *have* technically been writing some, since I've still been doing the Haiku Stand in Juneau.  Here's some from this week:

For Maeghan (request: the ever-present rain)

For Anna (request: her new house)

For Rico (ransom haiku. long story.)

For Kathleen, for her husband (request: technical writer + creative writer)

For Stefan (restoring sanity)

For Tanna (request: how we see ourselves)

I Am From

Our Juneau Writers of Color group is gonna meet this weekend so I thought it'd be fun if we all did an assignment, did the classic "I AM FROM" poem (prompt credited to George Ella Lyons, I believe) to share. It was kind of a selfish assignment because really I'm just forcing them to speed date with me for a moment, tell me where they're from, what makes them who they are, at least at this point in their lives. The last time i did an I AM FROM poem it was like my first year of college and where I was from Then is very different than where I'm from Now. It's interesting to think about how where we're from isn't just a cumulative list of experiences, they're weighted so that some stuff seems bigger, feels heavier, takes up more room than other stuff at different points in our lives. Well, here it is, proof I did my homework, current stuff taking up room in my life:

I AM FROM

I am from combat shopping day after Thanksgiving, sun still feasting on dawn, my mother coaching us in the parking lot:
Grab whatever looks good, think about it later. Be quick, travel light. Socks are half off.

I am from brown hair, black hair, pepper, pennies, sunrise, strawberry blonde locks,
gossiped and snipped, pieces of other people’s beauty as of yesterday,
their rich wigs, fallen to my mother’s spare change feet, kissing the ground she walks on.
I am from the daughter of daughter of hairdressers,
of gentle hands at your pressure points.

I am from May the LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up His countenance to you, and give you peace!

and I am from god damn peaceful people,
who choose to say nothing
if they have nothing nice to say,

so I am from begging the LORD to love me anyway.

I am from high school sweethearts married almost 40 years now, whose sole concept of hurting each other’s feelings is not being able to find the other person at Costco.

I am from heroes, who I never saw in their normal clothes until I was grown.
I am from ripping them apart, searching for their capes.

I am from
the single tear a woman lets herself cry only once a year,
rolled along Seoul’s sewer system,
carried by rat to the coast,
shaken off hands wiped clean.
I am from a drop
a ripple
a storm
gaining strength across the ocean,

I am from destruction
from men at their knees
from frantic mothers, their children’s names an endless echo,
and a sore prayer in the throats of presidents,

and I am from not knowing my own strength,
reaching out to touch him and my wave breaking legs,
I crash, just wanting to lap at his ankles.

I am from two hundred thousand sunken ships,
our treasure lost at sea, and like ghosts
we haunt the streets of our homeland,
looking for what’s ours,
I am from passing our hands through solid objects as we name them.
Korean men and women,
maybe our brothers and sisters,
stare straight through our accent,
our american hips,
our histories,
so we can not tel
lif we have really come back
or not.

I am from abandoning myself.
From tucking me
in a basket, floating down a monarch vodka river,
From leaving me
at doorsteps, in backseats, under silk sheets, between body heat.

I am from two driftwood twigs paler than they ever were,
softer than they appear,
broken from a weeping tree somewhere,
and I am from the fifteen year old haphazard love making of their edges as they
rub together like they were meant to be fire,
limbs in a collision rhythm.
See I am not from sparks,
I am from friction, from smoke, from a slow burn that scars you from the inside.

I am from a dream left open and men like happy thieves
I am from a pirate wife’s life, who let him steal from me.
and I am from mutiny,
from a plank made out of fingernails I pulled from our hearts.
And I am from the watch tower on starboard side at sunset,
wide awake, with death grips on a pistol,
on my steel child not to be confused with bullets,
and old poems I quilted into a white flag,
some days we raise it.

I am from the Queen of Spades,
the Ace of Hearts,
the Five of Diamonds.
I am nothing. I am royalty.

Pick me,
put me back,
shuffle me, cut me,
let me be found.
I am magic, I am from tricks.

The Carver

A First Nations man, a fifth generation carver, was shot four times by a Seattle police officer on Monday when he was walking with his folded knife and a block of wood.  I wanted to write about how it was not an isolated event of police brutality, or even brutality in general against indigenous people.  Likewise, there is something poetic and devastatingly symbolic about the perceived threat of the knife of a carver to this police officer.  Is it the carver, or the tradition of carving, which cuts and heals simultaneously? Anyway, late night questions.

This is my attempt at articulation of my anger, and actually deserves better attention than my rough Thursday poem habits of just typing whatever comes to mind, but at least something's out there, and we can talk about it.  Good night.  Christy

THE CARVER
For John T. (“Trouble”) Williams

Dear John, you’re Trouble, I love you.

Your grin in the sidewalk,
your sidestep stagger, a spin,
I am your lady,
you are my duke,
let’s be rich until midnight.

Dear John, you are two thirty, I love you.
Open your eyes, see me in
my torn threads as I
de-sparkle,
glass slippers, one slipper, barefoot as you blink.
Now we are dancing servants,

and we are early.

John, time’s got a joke in your drink,
take a swig and laugh it backwards,
I love you in every generation.

Dear John, Father of John, Father of Father of
John, Father of Father of Father of John,

with knives as hands,
cut across a block of wood like sons
whittled into bears, into birds,
into brave beasts.

With knives as hands, I love you.

This ribbon world, shred it.
Spiral it to your touch.

Me, my drunk passion for you,
prick my finger, make me promise.

Dinner, a lavish processed plate,
divide it, take what you need, leave it, share it.

The day, cut and paste the hours,
dream at noon, stumble in somewhere
when you are not welcome,
where you are not welcome,

The welcomers, scrape heart scars onto their chest, lest they forget.

Your feet, slash the bottoms, a trail to your mother, go home.

And in the city park garden, carve your name into the woodwork,
your father’s name, all their fathers’ names, carve their wives’ names, their children’s names, your clan names, the animals that make you cunning, the wind directions that you make tremble, carve it all, give it a new shape, an old shape, leave a reminder,

because today, my love,
today they will yell into your bad ear,
they will demand that you drop your knife to the ground,

and they do not know.
They do not know how your knife holds me safe against nightmares,
how it held out tokens, how it opened trees into stories,
how you were born with the family glint,
how it healed a man to know where he came from,
they think it’s something you can let go of.

And you will not surrender,
you will fall to pieces.

You will not be put back together.

John,
the police are looking for witnesses.
But they will not find them in the park,
his and her recollections of a few spare minutes.

Who will tell them how you loved?

That these are not your king’s horses.
That these are not your king’s men.
This was not a wall you fell off of.

It was tradition.

The Carver

A First Nations man, a fifth generation carver, was shot four times by a Seattle police officer on Monday when he was walking with his folded knife and a block of wood.  I wanted to write about how it was not an isolated event of police brutality, or even brutality in general against indigenous people.  Likewise, there is something poetic and devastatingly symbolic about the perceived threat of the knife of a carver to this police officer.  Is it the carver, or the tradition of carving, which cuts and heals simultaneously? Anyway, late night questions.

This is my attempt at articulation of my anger, and actually deserves better attention than my rough Thursday poem habits of just typing whatever comes to mind, but at least something's out there, and we can talk about it.  Good night.  Christy

THE CARVER
For John T. (“Trouble”) Williams

Dear John, you’re Trouble, I love you.

Your grin in the sidewalk,
your sidestep stagger, a spin,
I am your lady,
you are my duke,
let’s be rich until midnight.

Dear John, you are two thirty, I love you.
Open your eyes, see me in
my torn threads as I
de-sparkle,
glass slippers, one slipper, barefoot as you blink.
Now we are dancing servants,

and we are early.

John, time’s got a joke in your drink,
take a swig and laugh it backwards,
I love you in every generation.

Dear John, Father of John, Father of Father of
John, Father of Father of Father of John,

with knives as hands,
cut across a block of wood like a son
whittled into bears, into birds,
into brave beasts.

With knives as hands, I love you.

This ribbon world, shred it.
Spiral it to your touch.

Me, my drunk passion for you,
prick my finger, make me promise.

Dinner, a lavish processed plate,
divide it, take what you need, leave it, share it.

The day, cut and paste the hours,
dream at noon, stumble in somewhere
when you are not welcome,
where you are not welcome,

The welcomers, scrape heart scars onto their chest, lest they forget.

Your feet, slash a trail to your mother, go home.

And in the city park garden, carve your name into the woodwork,
your father’s name, all their fathers’ names, carve their wives’ names, their children’s names, your clan names, the animals that make you cunning, the wind directions that you make tremble, carve it all, give it a new shape, an old shape, leave a reminder,

because today, my love,
today they will yell into your bad ear,
they will demand that you drop your knife to the ground,

and they do not know.
They do not know how your knife holds me safe against nightmares,
how it held out tokens, how it opened trees into stories,
how you were born with the family glint,
how it healed a man to know where he came from,
they think it’s something you can let go of.

And you will not surrender,
you will fall to pieces.

You will not be put back together.

John,
the police are looking for witnesses.
But they will not find them in the park,
his and her recollections of a few spare minutes.

Who will tell them how you loved?

That these are not your king’s horses.
That these are not your king’s men.
This was not a wall you fell off of.

It was tradition.

Haiku Giveaway Day II

Hi, I had another haiku giveaway day for my Thursday poem this week. Wrote a haiku for anyone who asked for one.  I had a couple requests, too, like "a limitless haiku" and a "climber haiku", which is fun cause it makes me feel (as Tim put it) like a Haiku DJ.

The first one, for my son, is probably my favorite.

DIEGO'S SKILLSAW: Your saw is so skilled / carved this knotted wooden heart / into a hope chest.

HIGHWAY SASHA: Your Way is so High / They call you Bridge now since all  / the people look up.

BRANDON’S LOLLIPOP: Your lolli’s so popped / that center looks too good to / count licks on the way.

PADRA’S TEARDROP: Your tear’s so dropped / even your scary sad days / get down like they’re hot.

BIG WHEEL STEVE: Your wheel is so big / everywhere you turned I just / had to roll with you.

ANN’S WINGSPAN: Your wing is so spanned / the kids called it an earthquake / as their ground took flight

STEEL STRING TREVOR: Your string is so steel / stretched between mountains you walk / no fear, just music

MEGAN’S LIMITLESS HAIKU (as requested): Your hug’s seventeen / syllables playing tag on / your arms, still running.

COURTNEY AT LIGHT SPEED: Your light’s so speedy / somewhere between here and your / hope, the dark gave up.

TGIF THANK GOLD IT’S FRIDAY: Your day is so fried / Everything that you do is / frickin delicious.

CHRISTY’S SOFT COVER - Your cover’s so soft / they read you at night just to / hold you in their hands.

PHOEBE’S FREE REFILL: Your refill’s so free / no one in the room can feel / empty around you. 

ALICA’S SUN SCREEN - Your sun is so screened / it prints on people like a / designer label.

TIM’S WALLFLOWER (a climber haiku, as requested): Your wall’s so flowered. / Jealous, gravity saw you / and moved the ground there. 

REAL SIMPLE SARAH - Your simple’s so real / stressed-out fairies and dragons / pop you like a pill. 

KATIE’S COOL SHADES: Your shade is so cool / the sun wears your shadow on / Fridays out dancing.

CACHET ON THE NORTH SLOPE:  Your slope’s so North / you let it take its course but / it always points home.

KATIE’S STREET LIGHT:   Your street is so lit / the word on it burnt holes the / dead keep wishin on.

STACY’S BRIGHT SIDE: Your side is so bright / ‘course your grass is greener, ‘course / we wanna be there.

HILARY’S GRILLED CHEESE: Your cheese is so grilled / every smile got that burnt flipped / look that’s addicting.

COLIN’S MUD SLIDE: Your slide’s so muddy. / You know life’s more fun if you / get a lil dirty.   

SWEET TOOTH ANNIE: Your tooth is so sweet / that even the cuspids chew / nice when you’re around.

STEM CELL HELEN:  Your cell is so stemmed. / Like any cage, you can just / flower out of there.  

PATCHWORK MALIA: Your work is so patched / the broken places are what / make the quilt gorgeous.

SPINELESS

Name your night I will find your favorite color in the sunset.

And I am not so mighty of a woman that
I could claim to cut a high
piece for your bedside
or keep any soft ray of it
in my hand safely, but I
would see you in this light for a moment:

let my eyes maze through its lines your lines
our lines, the cleanest shades of gray
pink lavender blue whale white falsetto,
wrapped around over under
its tired chest, and I will
memorize the sharp shape
of your face turned upward, the sky
smiling spineless on your gaze.

Like Any American Meal

Ho’s father can make the meanest bowl of noodles,
beef on boil for two lovesick days
until every stubborn chunk of it
lets go of their bones and falls
to the good graces of the water.

Y la Mama de Francisco makes tamales
as if corn were lottery tickets.
She picks the gold off the Pasadena summer,
steams it until all the neighbors feel rich,

and for a year I watched Shaquanda raise her voice
so no one could hear her breaking.
She never hugged her children,
but she fried chicken
like she believed in it.

Well my own Irish mother from the heartland,
she whipped bisquick and milk with the best of them
and we ate pancakes sunday mornings,
looked just like the picture.

She had a cake pan, shape like a dome
and every daughter used it at least one birthday,
plopped the top half of a blank barbie in the center, and
my mother worked for hours frosting her into life,
piping each ruffle like small miracles, every color,
and it wasn’t about the princess,
it was the dress.

Halibut, she would switch off, sometimes
fried in the depths of angry oil, sided with tart yellow sauce,
sometimes slow baked, blanketed 
in soft mayonnaise, full fat sour cream, a whisper of paprika and
bread crumbs, yes,
I could follow it home.

She has learned, over the years,
to buy white bread, because that’s what the rich people buy,
to buy wheat bread, because that’s what the rich people buy,
to buy all natural organic bunny crackers
but only once, because they taste like cardboard.

And when someone else
made a competing jello dish at Christmas,
we each still ate a serving to be polite.
Though we hailed our mother at home later,
silent pride was our tradition.

I was never my mother’s Korean daughter
just her daughter daughter,
so she steamed minute rice from
an orange box with a white uncle on it,
reached into the freezer some evenings
and pulled a costco bag of vegetables with
STIR FRY scrawled across like a kung fu movie,
like a battle between water chestnuts and snow peas,
and in a different life, my mother may have
high-kicked them into bits between blinks.

But in our family,
she gently sprayed a pan with PAM
fried them over medium heat,
shook only enough soy sauce to barely brown them,
and stirred like any American meal,
except she secretly knew
that this one,

this one
was my favorite.

Morning Stories

Good moms read books at bedtime,
Great moms tell morning stories.

Where there are no mice to say goodnight to the moon
only bright eyed salmon hatching without their mothers, tasting
the width of the water with their clumsy thirst.

They are waking, at the break of the fog,
and there is so much to say.

How a boy can row to shore on his tricycle,
greet the robots with smoked halibut and jellybeans,
he can dance with the best of them, he can
ride the hills until the hills are tired, until they
blow their sand like a silk dress around the sun and the
sun wears it to work all day and everyone wants to
comb her rays and look for treasure.

Oh, good morning.

Did you hear about the prince who was not a prince
just a mailman with a river of love letters and he
slept on a feather there, dipping his toes in
promises and pictures and signatures
so that when he walked in triangles his footsteps left
everlasting bricks until they were pyramids.

Open your eyes, baby,

There’s a dinosaur outside our window and he
picked all the neighbors flowers with his teeth
while they were sleeping and he
took a shower in their sprinkler and they
wouldn’t have known but he started singing so
Mrs. Bingham is banging her Toyota Sequoia
against his ankle and it tickles.

Wake up! See the T-rex laughing. 

He can’t help but catch his breath and start a tornado.
We are flying, here in our small white apartment,
the plants, the books, the couch, the dishes,
shooting like stars in our living room,
and we could make a thousand wishes but
i only wish one, you only wish one.

I roll my shocked body over yours and ask for peace,
but you, you
hold out your brave young arms
and I and every scared stuffed animal
fit there.

Let the day begin.

My Son Runs in Riots

Well, another f'd up moment in american history.  My heart and grit teeth go out to the family of Oscar Grant, another victim of police brutality and the legal system.  More info: http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/07/oscar_grant_verdict_merhserle_guilty_of_involuntary_manslaughter.html  

MY SON RUNS IN RIOTS
for Oscar Grant & other warriors

I don’t use playpens,
my son runs in riots.

He took his first steps towards burning buildings
and he carried a molotov cocktail in his right,
draggin his blankie in the left gripped tight,

half brushed cotton, half tear-stained satin,
he lets the tail gather the dirt and screams of the street,
he can’t sleep without it.

When I sing lullabyes
we are often running
and he keeps up cause
he loves the sound of twinkle twinkle
little star
to fire alarms.
He think ashes are diamonds in the sky.

I breast-fed for a year,
as recommended,
and weaned him to household chemicals.
We are only as strong as the bomb we mix
and my son’s lungs glisten.

Listen
I don’t want another language to be lost
so I whisper the traditions of tamed lions
I grip his wrist
for his attention
I purr the words
how we were told we could not be wild
and i clench his shoulders
and i hold him
and I told him
they said we were not real lions
they said they were not real gate keepers
they said the cage would not come between us
they said this was justice
and i swore for whatever mother this earth was supposed to be and i said,
the truth. is.
we are free.

Unlike me,
he didn’t pause at the thought.
My son stood up
sucked on a switchblade and
took off.

He met men with gray hearts and silver badges
and he has
bullets in his back,
he has
bullets in his front,
he has 56 baton blows, six kicks in his ribs and

when you watch the video
it’s tough to tell whose son it is.

2010:
all my children cry tear gas.

She Had Some Dragons

Joy Harjo wrote about horses; I chose to write about dragons, one of the many mythical creatures us Asian people get to represent us, for better or worse, right. 

SHE HAD SOME DRAGONS
after Joy Harjo's, "She Had Some Horses"

She had some dragons.

She had dragons who were clenched tree trunks.
She had dragons who were smoke ghosts.
She had dragons who were palm rocks, stacked into wishes.
She had dragons with wave tumbled skin.
She had dragons with desperate teeth and bit their daughters.

She had some dragons.

She had dragons who swallowed swords because they liked the taste.
She had dragons who hunted the ground for quarters.
She had dragons who reached through the fog to touch her.
She had dragons who flew backwards into the sun, who could not look at their mothers.
She had dragons who ate other dragons
for breakfast.

She had some dragons.

She had dragons who made love in a math equation.
She had dragons who made love in a corolla.
She had dragons who made love in an earthquake, in a falling building, in a corner someone told her was safe.
She had dragons who disappeared under pressure.
She had dragons who found adventure in books, who raised their hand only to turn pages, who kissed like heroes.

She had some dragons. 

She had dragons who woke up to a war, who cut the steel springs from their mattress and planted a field of bullets for their children.
She had dragons who moved rice grains with only their chopsticks, stacked them into mountains. 
She had dragons who climbed these mountains, with bricks on their back to build a village at the peak. 
She had dragons who thought they died alone.

She had some dragons.

She had dragons who broke into barbed wire gardens.
She had dragons with cold blood, who could wrap around her in a hurricane, turn the temperature of her hope.
She had dragons with warm blood, who knocked at her door with black eyes and cut knuckles, fire spitting from their wounds, and it burnt to touch them, to heal them, to rock them, to love them,
but she was not afraid.

She had some dragons.

She had dragons who made language their tank, who held a room captive.
She had dragons with stone eye replacements.
She had dragons who blew kisses into the dark to torch the way.
She had dragons who missed her.
She had dragons who did not know her.

She had some dragons.

She had some dragons with winged backs.
She had some dragons with lead hearts.

These were the same dragons. 

Monster Under the Bed

A friend of mine is going through some rough stuff, bad stuff, with her baby daddy and it's dredging up all this crap in my own heart. This poem's part my experiences, but it's a collage of other women's experiences, too, all of whom have been dear to me, and all of whom have also found themselves wrapped around a man (or several men) who was abusive - either physically, emotionally, mentally.... and, not knowing the real name, we called it love.  But it's really a:

MONSTER UNDER THE BED

If my son found the monster under the bed,
I’d say:

Some monsters are hard to kick out
so I let him live here.

On the plus side,
He has a great smile.

And he can cook!
Boy, when he cooks I could eat an army,
but I don’t.
Cause I try to set a good example.

But what I’d know
is that monsters have short term memories.

They can’t remember who punched those
moon craters into the wall.
Or halfway through a sentence, when
it got so loud, so goddamn loud in this house.
Why are you lying there, at the bottom of the stairs,
singing songs to your crimson tide womb.
Why did you make them choke you hit you pull you push you like that.
Who threw that lamp.

They don’t love you.
Wait.
They love you. More than anything.

Minutes, days, weeks with holes in them.
I wonder how monsters keep track of time this way.

My monster,
he has all the time in the world anyway.

He hovered there like
A drunk angel
watching me
sink through the cement,
my knees so weak,
my heart so heavy.

He was on my back
as I limped outside,
parting a smile through my river of tears,
a joker,
a joke.

No matter how far I swam
to drown my thoughts,
throw the things I’ve said the things I’ve done
into the water like farewell ashes,
my monster was the end of the ocean,
calling me closer.

And I can’t get the sound of his choked voice
out of my room.
The sawing of his lips as he begged for forgiveness,
held me tight like his arms could squeeze me into
something softer,
cried kissed cried kissed
into my granite forehead,
and I broke enough
to let a little of his toxic hope in.

So he lives under the bed.

I don’t want my baby to know.
I hold him close,
closer than a safe boy wants to be held
kiss him more than strong boys want to be kissed,
tuck his feathered head into my chest,
and I never fall asleep before he does.

I curse the monster for being there,
for sinking his teeth into our lives,
for twisting my love into a boomerang bullet,

And I watch my son drift to dreams in my arms

Unafraid,
as he should be.
as his mother could be.
if only she
could let him go.