Bird Eating Bird Read online

  Green: “You know house, don’t complain about ‘n.’ You need thicker skin. Take ‘g,’ for example. A green girl—she wouldn’t complain.”

  Then a series of ‘b’-jobs, and ‘p’-jobs, and ‘s’-work that bowled the ‘h’ over. While house slept quietly, ‘z’ rang in her head.

  And for the rest of her days misfortune followed her, sentence, language, country, continent. When house traipsed Europe: Liaison, liaison, mon amis, the French words said. In Spanish, ‘h’ suffered mistaken identity. ¿‘Hache’ o ‘ge’ o ‘equis’ o ‘jota,’ ¿cuál es su nombre, ‘h’? The Spanish words said.

  So house found a quiet spot in the country, just to the right of the silent period. House. And spent her days sounding her name to herself. And wondering if she’d ever be heard from again, started her autobiography.

  “Once, there was a house with no ‘h.’”

  5.

  Suppose there is a bubble that flutters inside you. Or suppose it builds in the plastic air. Or the plastic that is liquid and luminous yet air. Or suppose in reverse the air plastic. And in its sloshing to-and-fro forms teacups of air unsettling its layers. In the teacups is air air not plastic. And teacups are cool and porcelain as anything that’s cool and porcelain. And suppose bubble—though never a bubble before—porcelain and cool as anything once thrown from a wheel, a fired thing, a red thing before it sits and cools on a rack thing, formed of the sloshing that makes bubbles in the plastic air. And bubble air inside of it, an echo of liquid spun into its well. And the echo of heat as liquid brews in the smile that’s the bottom of the well.

  6.

  Houses come in two sizes—big and bigger. Since the rich always get richer, there will always be a need for bigger, more gigantic houses. Houses big enough for all the dough they make.

  It is not empirically possible to prove the existence of the rich. (So say studies funded by the rich.) Nor possible to prove the existence of the poor. (Cite similar studies.)

  7.

  There are purple houses in America that make a stink with their neighborhood associations. There are enormous red houses we call ‘barns’ that stand in the country, where farmers stack their feed, and tools, and sometimes chickens—but for nostalgia—no one mentions them. There are houses in the warmer states put together of hay bails and dirt and cement-like fixatives and painted the color of the land and no one, not even the shifty fox, complains. There are houses made of wood or painted to resemble wood in the deep forests. And just last summer when neighbors painted their house ‘Cape Cod Grey,’ and the rest of us snickered, But this is not Cape Cod, and beside the too-doo a gaggle of book-worms made over the spelling of Grey on a paint can, not-one, single, solitary complaint. But in America when there is a purple house, it is sure to make a stink with the neighborhood association. And as sure as it will be a stink, it will also surely become news in the town newspaper whose name has wedded and is wistful for the once, great rivalry of Sun, Star, Gazette, and Intelligencers hurrying to report of the comings and goings of the town. And the paper will re-conceptualize the engagement for a wider audience, naming it, ‘a nasty skirmish,’ and then angle it, ‘stubborn, purple home-owner’ vs. ‘determined, neighborhood association.’ And the local-color piece will play in the Metro section of the Sunday paper people reach for as if reaching for their toast. And still then, it will not be mentioned how street lamps gauze the town over in purple, when the cool, dimming light of August approaches—houses, and sidewalks, the laundry mat windows, and laundry chiming in the windows of the washing machines, and suds purpling. And no one hurries to write this, nor bangs door to door for someone else to witness the phenomena. Nor mentions, however, still, in the dimming light of August, purple cascades even from pens; so somehow—even without volition—purple poems are written, telling of the world awash in plush, August light. And of the purple music box. And stars through the lens of the periscope. And lovers soothing against each other in the purple heat of August, leaving swatches of color on the sheets beneath them. And that, this purple light is a healing force that showers the tired townspeople, the homeowners, and all of the members of the neighborhood association, the farmers and contractors, hay-bailers and seed-handlers, newspaper reporters, and copy editors, managing editors, and publishers, layout operators, and laundry machinists, poets, and all of the readers who live in the town inside of that poem.

  No quiero ya no quiero

  la sucia sucia sucia luz del día.

  lejana infancia paraíso cielo

  oh seguro seguro paraíso.

  I don’t want anymore don’t want

  the dirty foul rancid light of day

  distance infancy paradise heaven

  oh safe certain paradise.

  —Idea Vilariño

  MANEJAR, 1–80 NEBRASKA

  Con latigo de madera, un joven sin camisa

  rechazaba los penachos de pasto de la pradera.

  Detras de él un tren cruzaba pararelo sobre la tierra llanera.

  El vidrio tranquilizaba todas las heridas altas.

  Bajé las ventanas y las brisas se pincharon

  a las briznas filosas de nuestro aliento usado

  que se habían desenrollado en la cabina del camión.

  No tener prisa para contarlo mientras manejaba ella.

  Abandonado, el joven volvía al germen en el retrovisor.

  Las pistas se caían a plomo hacia un barranco

  que se ha secado y el tren seguía hacia el fondo.

  Quizá la palabra sentida sería abismo.

  DRIVING, 1-80 NEBRASKA

  A boy bare-chested with a switch

  beat back the plumes of the prairie grasses.

  Behind him a train filed parallel over the plain land.

  The glass tranquilized any loud wounds.

  I rolled down the window and breezes

  needled the wooly ends of used-up breath

  that had unspooled into the truck cabin.

  No hurry to tell the story as she drove.

  The boy went to seed in the rearview mirror.

  The tracks plummeted into a defunct ravine

  and the train followed down the hollow.

  Or, was the right word for it chasm.

  WITNESS

  My cousin Sonny missions with her kids in the Philippines.

  In Pittsburgh, Constance and Reyanne come to the door. We’ve met before at another address.

  Through the lead-glass window: they straighten their scarves, teeth, when they hear footsteps clanging near the door.

  They don’t remember my stream-lined teeth, my globy lips or eyes from all the heads they meet.

  My cousin Sonny’s a Witness, too, I tell them. She missions with her kids in the Philippines.

  Down Atlantic Avenue, a year before, I said, Come back and meet Faith, the owner. She’s new in town and needs to make more friends.

  Today, they ask if I follow faith and I decline, an atheist. And they ring their knuckles—screw fingers around their moldy joints like a nut-cracker’s teeth.

  My cousin Jing Jing—Sonny’s sister—a Witness, too, I say as they clang the pages of their good books, fingering for a tooth of conversation.

  Constance and Reyanne don’t rush into talking. Mornings, they buzz by the doors like flies.

  And I’m patient with them—out of respect for the cousins—while teeming in the hot, Pittsburgh dust I carry in a suitcase from home to home.

  Jing Jing is my favorite name, is what I long to tell them. What’s your favorite name? I long to ask.

  Once, in Seattle, I was bald and breezes slid easily from my gut. I’d say, Make like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and count me out.

  Once, Sonny and Jing came out to the S.F. Airport to see Puring and me as we stretched our good leg out to the Philippines.

  They kept a glowy silence about my head as we teetered past the clanging Krishnas.

  Love balled through my bare skin. A brilliant passport.

  In the P.I., Puring a
nd I visited Uncle Ulpiano—their father—a stroke had left a golden sore in his eye.

  Faith is a photo of Ulpe, a Ranger in WWII, closed in the dusty pages of a book, his corners shrunken and torn, footless from all the marching.

  A friend of my grandfather’s taught Ulpe to read. For the god’s-sake of this story, we’ll call her Faith.

  Constance and Reyanne smile when I say: “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love” then they frown, “Our souls just mush under bootsoles, long to be eaten by grassy teeth.”

  Ulpe doesn’t recognize my brilliant head. Thinks I’m the younger brother. My name nonsense.

  With the Pacific conquered, Truman took the ones who read and sent the rest packing.

  When Constance and Reyanne hit the books again, I want to say, faith and belief, a foggy bathroom mirror, a raincoat on the man who drags a suitcase full of dictionaries door to door.

  Today’s forecast, humidity: I heat myself, I heat my hand, I heat the air inside my hand like a handful of warm, glass marbles.

  I can’t believe they call me Sister anyway. When they’re just Constance and Reyanne to me, the same as Jing and Sonny.

  Their pamphlet charges to my sweat and releases a green sore of ink in my palm.

  THE ADORATION AT EL MONTAN MOTOR LODGE

  —San Antonio, TX. Reviews not yet available.

  A leathery tobacco stain where her knuckle creases.

  Limón in the taco grease licked off of lovers’ fingers.

  Tonight the sheets will yellow beneath the dim light bulbs.

  A yellow kiss. love plagues the Earth.

  How water from the marred glass roughens her top lip.

  Exhaust the nylon rug kicks up. The pink sink. The mirror above the sink that forces a ripple through her gut. The smile that’s a water-stain on the smoky curtains. A pillow that—for the most part—lovers use for balancing. The cataract bluing the tube inside the ancient TV set. The showers that run all day and swell the hallway with their sweat. The dewy pillow against her face. A plague of love upon her.

  For hours the lovers’ feet kick at the woozy nightstand.

  Santa Biblia in gold leaf on the good book on the nightstand.

  Brown nipples that start to fade as she ages, that metallic pussy smell, how the grain of her cunt toughens around her fingers when she comes, the veneer of as a mouth.

  Blood that starts to slough off once her breath has dried it to her lips.

  Combing fingers through the red carpet fronds, searching for her glasses.

  Side-by-side the blisters raise in the shape of teeth.

  WHILE WATCHING DALLAS, MY FILIPINA AUNTIE GROOMS ME FOR WORK AT THE MASSAGE PARLOR

  Friday nights, the images

  of hot tubs, Manhattans,

  and blondes fingering the hair

  on Cliff Barnes’ chest tickled

  my Auntie Linda until she cried,

  Aiiieeeee! Auntie Ning beside her

  rolled cotton balls in tubes

  she used to dab the cheap nail

  polish that pooled between

  her cuticle and skin.

  Days, Auntie Linda worked

  at Hair Cuttery. In her chair,

  clients were mortified to hear,

  Sagging breasts means sagging hair,

  as Linda parted their wet mops

  down the middle for effect.

  Nights, I painted my nails

  Pearlucious. I begged for Ruby Red.

  But Linda said, That’s an old,

  white ladies color. They leave quarters.

  Their husbands leave watches.

  Auntie Ning hiked up a pant leg,

  and I dug my fingers into her calf.

  She writhed and slapped at the thin rug,

  tossed over holes in the thinning carpet.

  Meanwhile, J.R. tippled scotch.

  Close-up, wordlessly, he scolded me

  for carving grids in the lotion

  I lathered on Ining’s legs.

  Ice clinked in J.R.’s glass. Crystal,

  it twinkled in the light. He took

  a swig and said, If you point

  a double barrel shot gun at me,

  you better fire both barrels.

  Linda worked on Ning with

  a chopping motion that prompted

  her to tell the story of how she

  wanted to karate chop the neck

  of gentlemen clients who waited

  by her car to ask her out. I was ten.

  Even then, I figured she also

  meant my father, who teased her

  at dinner, You touch dirty old men,

  when every morning he tramped

  the hallway in a towel, his package

  swashbuckling hip to hip.

  When I rubbed Linda’s tiring

  hands, she said I should work

  with her, Saturdays nights,

  tips plus ten bucks an hour.

  Sue Ellen carried John Ross to the jet.

  Back then I wondered, who calls

  a child by such an adult name?

  The child who, a season later,

  is eight years old. After two more,

  he turns fourteen. A hiatus and

  he returns to Southfork, to learn

  to pick flesh and blood

  apart just like his father.

  SEGUIR

  Un pescador

  en la cama del río,

  un gusano

  tan enfriado como

  leche en la mano,

  ensarta el anzuelo

  anillo a través

  de los bulbos

  de la carne.

  Penetrado

  se afloja

  como una cintilla

  que se quita

  de la rueda

  y se llena

  con polvo.

  El cielo está gris.

  El pescador

  coge la caña,

  trozo de plomo

  con forma de lágrima,

  lastra

  la línea de seda,

  a la vez que hunde

  su palma

  en el corque

  del mango.

  Al tirar la línea,

  dibuja semicírculos

  en el aire,

  ese movimiento sutil

  como una hoz

  y el aire suelta

  una soporosa queja

  mientras la línea

  siega por encima.

  La línea vacila,

  sobre la expansión

  de agua, gira

  el cilindro de la trampa

  de la línea tan rápido

  que el huso chirria

  como lo misma

  pena de las visagras

  de la puerta enojada.

  El pescador espera

  oír el sonido

  roto por el projectil

  el silencio del agua

  antes de buscar

  la carnada donde

  las pequeñas ondas

  se combaten por

  el agua más allá.

  SEGUIR: TO FOLLOW, KEEP ON, CONTINUE

  A fisherman

  on a river bed,

  a worm

  cool as milk

  in his hand,

  threads his silver

  hook through

  the bulbs of

  the worm’s body.

  Pierced

  it goes slack

  as tape drawn off

  a wheel and

  sated with dust.

  The sky is gray.

  The fisherman

  grabs his pole,

  tear-shaped iron

  weights ballast

  the fishing line

  as he sinks

  his palm into

  the groove he wears

  and wears into

  the handle’s cork.

  Casting he loops

  the line behind him

  and swings it />
  keen as a sickle

  and the air lets go

  of a sleepy groan

  when the line

  mows over it.

  The line across

  the water’s

  expanse spins

  the barrel of the

  fishing line’s trap,

  so fast the spindle

  moans like an angry

  door’s hinges.

  Then the fisherman

  waits for a plunk

  before he searches

  for his bait

  where the ripples

  already gang up

  in the water

  beyond him.

  IN THE TIME OF THE CATERPILLARS

  Auntie Ining renders fat from slabs of pork she’s cut into cubes.

  At the kitchen table, I render “Scene from the Garden of Gethsemane” in chalk, in the backdrop a greasy staccato.