Oceanic Read online

  you think her nerves are left a little more electric

  after she is caught? Sometimes if you put an ear

  to the dark slash between my hip bones, you can hear

  a soft hum. Pretend it’s a skit of bees in late spring.

  The Cockroach Responds

  …and when I turn on the light you scuttle

  into the corners and there is this hiss upon the land.

  Anne Sexton

  But of course you didn’t stick around for the bloom

  of babies. And whatever evil I was given,

  I swallowed, which is more than I can say

  for some women. It became a beautiful swell

  in my side and when my body could not bear it,

  I stood on my head and offered myself up

  to the lavender lining of the clouds: the world

  and all I knew could be would be good again.

  I have another chance. My young will learn

  to land safe, even though they can never

  sprout wings. I’ll teach them the fine trick

  of walking up jelly-smeared aquarium glass.

  You can bet these babies will always remember

  to watch out for sticky-tongue and beak.

  Andromache Begs Hector to Reconsider

  Think of the wheat fields you clipped

  and ran through in your youth. Don’t you

  want your son to feel a kingdom

  of grain in his little clenched hand?

  Don’t you want to be the one

  to give him that first fistful

  of grain and corn? No armor

  or plumed helmet could ever

  protect me from the poison

  given in mercy by the sun. I need you

  and your warm calves in my bed.

  Don’t let me trace the moon-glow crawl

  of worms across your torn body. I won’t know

  what shape to spoon into, or where.

  When I’m Away from You, I Feel like the Second-Place Winner in a Bee-Wearing Contest

  who practiced all year, only

  to lose to a guy whose

  every inch was covered

  in hum. And I am in awe

  to learn one cheeky bee

  clambered into the winner’s

  sugared ear, another

  slid into his nostril, and still—

  he didn’t flip. Just calmly

  waited for the bell to ring

  a victory. But even

  fifty-seven pounds of bees

  can’t stop the music I hear

  when I return to you, the music

  I hear when you walk near me.

  Like I’m always carried in enough

  good sting and thrum to remember

  our life. I’ll always return home

  to you—my honeycomb, my sweet—

  my one faithful and true buzz.

  In the Museum of Glass Flowers

  CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

  In the museum of glass flowers, a hemlock branch threatens

  to leave bite marks, so crisp and pointy. Even the red bell-buds

  have the same bit of waxy residue the real-life ones do.

  There are cold noodles in the refrigerator that I could share

  with you. The curator forgot. There is one key left

  in the pitcher plant display case. I am tempted to turn it.

  Make it click. You are the kind of person who wears

  a rabbit T-shirt. I wear pink loafers. Inside this locket

  is a picture of my two loves. I wear this amulet to protect me

  from people like me who would contemplate touching

  a glass flower at Harvard. Even though there are explicit

  signs everywhere: Do not touch the glass displays!

  A teacher once told me to never use an exclamation mark

  unless I were writing the line, “Watch out, there’s a bus!”

  The bus ride would only be five hours. I’d meet you there

  and we could talk over a dandelion coffee. You once

  said hummingbirds called my name. But I think the thrum

  was something else. Something wild and hairy. I’d meet you

  there. Like something hiding under a bridge, the stuff

  of fairy tales and ribboned girls who dance and dance

  and never notice the singular toad watching them

  from the edge of a marbled bench. See him sleep. See him

  burp. See how he catches a crunchy gnat, and that

  singular snack satisfies him sometimes for a whole day.

  Dangerous

  The rooster talks to the donkey.

  The turtle whispers to the rabbit.

  The mouse conspires with the lion.

  I have been reading fairy tales

  and I know you are dangerous.

  I see it in your shiny teeth. You

  might as well be hiding in a bed

  with the covers pulled up

  to your nose, waiting for me

  and my red cape. I have a baby

  at home and another in a basket.

  I have a spider that lives just above

  my spice rack. I’ve dusted his web

  with paprika and turmeric,

  and I will throw it all into a stew

  I might feed you one day. You might

  as well take an extra pause when you

  press into my chest and hear my heart

  clap through my thin blouse. That’s

  all I can do. That’s all I can say.

  Travel Mommy Ghazal

  Before I boarded the plane, my son sighed, I wish I had another mommy

  with thirty-three teeth and she can be called: Travel Mommy.

  We could sit by our fireplace and I could make hot cocoa

  while the snow piles into pillows, but inside: just Mom and me.

  That mother with a shiny extra tooth will sneak and fly and teach

  poetry to big kids. Not my pretty, thirty-two toothed mommy.

  But now I’m on the plane and searching the horizon for a prayer

  to keep my family safe, something I learned from my own mom.

  I find an answer in my coat pocket, a folded note my son sneaked

  there while we waited at the ticket counter, addressed, To: Mommy.

  Probably by the time you read this, Daddy is quiet and driving us home.

  I aim my gaze to the almost-planets. Isn’t the sky colored like a parrot, Mom?

  Flowers at the Taj Mahal

  I question you, poppy,

  paper-thin bloom

  and spindly rubber neck.

  I accuse you of a mouth

  cupped open like

  a slobbering jackal’s,

  like happy rats in cheese.

  There is no greater victory

  than seeing you like this

  after all these years:

  thin legs, all teeth and eyes

  and a frayed sari cottoned

  around you. I look

  to your shadows—how you

  glow in sunrise or sunset,

  marbleizing the wet eyes

  of tourists and their stupid

  toothpaste smell. After two

  houses, four states, a new car,

  and two sons pulled from me—

  how could I love another

  mountain, monsoon, another

  man? How could I love

  a mausoleum I never met?

  While Riding an Elephant, I Think of Unicorns

  PERIYAR NATIONAL PARK, INDIA

  The elephant takes me deeper into the bamboo forest,

  and I start to worry about what other animals

  might be hiding here. The stalks so thick and clustered

  in tight walls of green, it makes me wonder

  about the tiger preserve nearby and how

  this would make a lovely place to find

  a dinner date, if I were a disgruntled tiger. />
  Or if I were a unicorn—and needed some peace

  and privacy—this would definitely be the ideal spot.

  And when I daydream about unicorns, I can’t help

  but think of that little frog in the lower-right corner

  of that famous medieval tapestry, Unicorn

  in Captivity. That fat and sassy unicorn—almost

  smiling in repose—while it munches pomegranate seeds

  fallen from the swollen tree under which it sits.

  The unicorn seems oblivious to the wily frog

  in the lower right-hand corner who hides in a bed

  of violets. And the lesson that this frog teaches me

  here atop this elephant, deep in this bamboo—

  is to not panic. Even when so clearly out of place

  and nothing seems familiar. Enjoy the view.

  There will be plenty of time for delicious

  and comfortable water-spots. That frog

  doesn’t know he will be part of history’s

  most memorable image of the unicorn.

  He just sits there, enjoying the view

  in his wee wool-warp, silk and gilt wefts,

  grateful for the fields of flowered finery.

  Self-Portrait as an Egg-Tempera Illuminated Manuscript from 1352

  Notice my halo, how the craquelure in the paint

  doesn’t even diminish the shine. Notice how

  fun it is to say craquelure. And it makes

  even the stoic guy who painted me bite

  the inside of his cheek to steady himself when

  he picks up his gilder’s knife to lay the gold leaf

  in delicate flakes. Like what you know to be fish food,

  is what I know of ash from the bottom of a porridge pot.

  I live across the fourth pew in a little Spanish church now,

  but my nose still wrinkles at the memory of chicken

  and eggshell, how he tapped each yolk into a wooden tray

  to mix with clay. How he had to paint me so quickly

  before the paint dried and toughened into a satin skin

  across my waist. Of course I fell for him (though

  my sisters warned me not to), but who could resist

  those dark eyes the dimple that mouth with the tiny scar

  like lightning just under his nose? Six hundred sixty-three

  years from now this planet will be granted an extra second.

  I know I’ll be spending that moment still wanting him

  to come back, apply just one more coat of verdaccio pigment

  and quietly tip in another layer of gold leaf

  on the hem of my robe—just to make sure

  everyone can see what might have been hidden

  under toughened paint, and lost all these slow years.

  Letter to the Northern Lights

  The light here on earth keeps us plenty busy: a fire

  in central Pennsylvania has been burning since 1962,

  whole squads of tiny squid blaze up the coast of Japan

  before sunrise. Of course you didn’t show when we went

  searching for you, but we found other lights: firefly,

  strawberry moon, a tiny catch of it in each other’s teeth.

  Someone who saw you said they lay down

  in the middle of the road and took you all in,

  and I guess you’re used to that—people falling

  over themselves to catch a glimpse of you

  and your weird mint-glow shushing itself over the lake.

  Aurora, I’d rather stay indoors with him—even if it meant

  a rickety hotel and its wood paneling, golf carpeting

  in the bathrooms, and grainy soapcakes. Instead

  of waiting until just the right hour of the shortest

  blue-night of the year when you finally felt moved

  enough to collide your gas particles with sun particles—

  I’d rather share sunrise with him and loon call

  over the lake with him, the slap of shoreline threaded

  through screen windows with him—my heart

  slamming in my chest, against my shirt—a kind

  of kindling you’d never be able to light on your own.

  Perch Bones and Apple Aubade

  Forgive her the want to press against your plaid shirt

  and weep with her eyes closed. The want for the sky

  to crack into rain. The want of those lady beetles pouring

  out of perch bones strewn along the shore of Lake Erie.

  The want for hollyhocks to falter this year, one less set

  of seeds to collect in a glassine envelope. If the yard

  is too wet for tomatoes, too dry for morning glories

  to twist and furl, she could race ahead to fall

  and be a fleshy tulip bulb, tamped into the ground

  to sleep a fitful sleep until you return. We never see

  the sky as it is, but only as it was. What if she came to you

  in the middle of the night and said she can’t sleep?

  That she needs to hear a bedtime story, perhaps a tale

  from your youth? Would you tell her of the time

  you first hit someone’s face, split his sweet cheek?

  What did the blood smell like and does its sound still

  linger in your fist? She wishes her unsleeping hips under

  those same palms. And that desire is the cool water sloshed

  into a trough at dawn. How all the horses amble over

  to get that first fresh drink. She is the ground exactly

  two horse-steps away from that first swallow. She is littered

  with apple cores and salt blocks packed down. Once you cross

  that space, you will always taste the memory of her

  on your beard. No tack cloth or stable rag can wipe it away.

  She hopes to never see where you live. She doesn’t

  want to picture what chair, what cup, what bed and whom.

  This Sugar

  When you ask me to split a dessert with you, I wince

  because I don’t like to share my restaurant food

  and there is the matter of who pays for what.

  If I don’t order a drink and just have a salad

  always the person in the group who gobbled steak,

  a glass of wine, and two appetizers says, Let’s just split

  the check equally! But you, you raise your eyebrows

  when the waitress mentions a brambleberry tart and maybe

  so do I. When she sets down the piping-hot pie dish

  with two funnels of steam and two spoons, you look

  at me and say, Dig in. We have already tasted

  from each other’s lips when we’ve shared cold glasses

  before. I’m fairly certain across this table across the slide

  of the fork, even the knife we both use—this is how

  thumbnail-size coquina clams feel when they tumble

  and toss into the shoreline from an impending storm—

  how they gasp and slide their foot trying to brace

  themselves, then thwap—another wave. And after

  that tumble, the sunlight glows below you, and then

  above you, where it should be, and I wipe my mouth

  with the pink napkin, and in the folds of that napkin

  is a lipstick kiss where the kiss should be—never

  between your neck and shoulder. Our mouths will press

  only on this sugar, this glaze, and this caramelized topping.

  Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth

  Too many needles spoil the cloth.

  Too many parrots spoil the talk.

  Too many chapped lips spoil the gloss.

  Too many teasel burs spoil the paw.

  Too many bubbles spoil the froth.

  Too many doorbells spoil the knock.

  Too many seeds spoil the floss.

  Too many feathers
spoil the claw.

  Too many lightbulbs spoil the moth.

  Too many holes spoil the sock.

  Too many sunbeams spoil the moss.

  Too many kisses spoil the jaw.

  Too many wolves spoil the flock.

  Too many necks spoil the block.

  Psyche & Cupid: A Reimagining

  This is not the cupid with bare bum and a quiver of arrows flying high

  with other putti in the foothills of Mount Olympus. But a story of the

  man, grown—fierce as an archangel. This is also the story of a woman who

  learned lip who learned lava who learned love and lagoon who learned to

  never fear wheat or wide sky.

  The parents were told that unless their maiden daughter Psyche was pushed

  off the crumbly edge of the tallest mountain on the outskirts of the village,

  the whole town would suffer famine and disease. This was to be the sacrifice

  to appease Aphrodite, the jealous mother of Cupid. There was no other way.

  The surrender must be made. The parents wept and ripped their clothes with

  each of Psyche’s small steps.