If I knew which mask, I would take it off.

Medical Interpreter at the Beach

See that feather.

The man cleaned his ear
with a pigeon feather
since the doctor told him
no Q-tips. When the doctor
looked inside his inflamed ear,
the hammer peeked out at him.

how did i get trapped by goodness

headless chicken squawk
contagious spit

no good
this day

but others are branded

you want brandy?

my traditional tibetan healer told me
less alcohol
no more than a glass

guilty the day after

ugh. those day afters

i lost my bra
that i just began to wear

have you ever burned one?

burning...

i may have jumped too quickly
without weighing other options


my preoccupations are space, bodies, gaps,
grief

tense body
past eyebags

past tense
of body bag


bye

i looked back after leaving the train
i was still sitting there

good thing I had my keys in my hand

i'm always losing my keys



that waiter
reminded me so much of an ex
my receipt is about to blow away

the big man at the next table
asked for sweet and low

and that little child was wearing
an Old Navy t-shirt

the woman talked to an old man on the train who started talking to her while leaning over her shoulder to read her papers and she responded because she rarely speaks to people over seventy like him, and she laughed saying really? entrepreneur, huh?


belonging is complicated

It took me days to find imprint
to fit inside a poem
for a translation that doesn't know where to go
I want to end the other poem
"I watch it in slow"
On the verge of crying three times
on the Monday
train to work
I will stop
reading Tuesdays with Morrie
to start my day

i wanted to take a nap-e-poo
but i have to watch Jesus get flogged

never again will i go to Man Ray
where women who play nuns
on tv are fingered by men
with dark sunglasses

and the bartender gives me my drink
wearing a schoolgirl outfit and pigtails

next i'll be drinking pig ears

"language is a deluge
from one small corner of the heart"

-Lu Chi, translated by Sam Hamill

The Hood of my Care

When the woman rolled up the hood of my car, the clothes from her laundry basket flooded my windshield. I became keenly aware of the blue steering wheel in my hand, and the blue interior I was encased in. The woman who rolled up the hood of my car said I must have sped up to hit her, told the cop that she had heard the motor revving up. I was watching how we were held by the cops on different sides of the parking lot of Mt. Pleasant Laundromat. I was talking to the other cop and watching the distance between us. Not talking to her felt like a hit and run, but I figured she didn't want to talk to the woman who hit her with a car. I was the enemy. I was just a figure being directed by the cops keeping the peace, jotting their notes. She was yelling. I was sobbing. I kept wanting to approach her. I had never hit someone before. The cords of my empathy rarely knew how to slacken.

As a singed spider

I return to the cavalcade of obesity
hang on to the green patina of copper
between the grey and the laconic.

My latinated hojas flutter in questions:
Am I the lacuna or that which surrounds me?

Will I weather the storm?