Books and Brownies

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Kundiman-Verlaine Poetry Reading


On Sunday, September 12, I read at a Kundiman-hosted reading with two amazing poets, Oliver de la Paz and Kristin Naca. Despite the heavy downpour, many of my favorite people made the trip to the Lower East Side to see me read. I also met other awesome people such as Joseph Legaspi, co-founder of Kundiman and one of the hosts of the reading. I felt really lucky to be there and filled up on blissful, inspiring vibes to last me a while. Although I wish I could have had more time to practice reading, I was happy with the poems I read.

Here are the poems I read on that night:

Breast Series I


Origin


They rose from the surface

of my chest

like unwelcome ant hills.

While I showered

I tried to push them back in

saying a prayer:

Dear God -

I hate these things.

Please don’t let them grow anymore.


Plateau


For two decades

they lived under cotton skin

and bras that were too big.


Hermits in school uniforms

or thrift store finds

I forgot about their existence

except when they came out

to be kissed and caressed

by a boyfriend.


They were like board games

I occasionally took out

to pass time and be amused.


Ant Hills


I saw them as too small

and too low on my torso.

They drooped like rabbit ears.


No longer believing in prayer

I wore a padded bra

under my Thai silk wedding dress.


Waxing


After Costa Rica, my breasts

began growing out of their bras.

Like the moon from new to full

filling up with light.


Breast Series II


First Time


In the hospital room

where my baby sleeps

in a plastic box,


I learn how to use

my breasts. At first

it is like losing my virginity –


my bare breasts feel cold

and shy. I do not know

what to do with our bodies.


I hold her awkwardly on a pillow,

tickle her chin so she opens wide

then aim my breast into her mouth.


There is no pain but warmth

of her skin and wonder:

am I doing this right?


Gold Mine


Strong as flexed muscles

solid as blocks of gold

full as the city reservoir.


They are sun, rain, and earth,

fertile valley feeding my daughter’s

blood, bones, and breath.


I hold her against my chest

watch her double in length,

walk, talk, and feel her way through.


Drip


There is a balance

between breasts –


when one is feeding

the other oozes


with maternal loving,

eager to give.


Either I catch it

and save it for later


or it puddles and drenches

the baby’s shirt.


The Cape


In restaurants, friends’ houses,

bookstores, I feed her

in dark or shaded corners.


Tan cape over my torso,

I unlatch the flap on my

nursing bra or tank,


subtly lift the carefully chosen

shirt, hide the baby and breasts

under layers of cotton.


Even at the Mermaid Parade

where women wear sequins tails

and glitter on their breasts


or paint their bodies red

and breathe fire,

I cover my naked skin.


Supply


At work between classes

I pump milk in a small room

behind a Do Not Enter door.


With one hand I hold the pumps in place,

with the other I turn pages,

type short emails, or eat a sandwich.


After, I store the milk in the fridge,

rinse out the parts in the bathroom,

then feed children sonnets and Socrates.


Breast Series III


Harvest


She is fifteen months

can break off bread

with her own teeth,

drink with her own hands,

pick up peas with her fingers,

eat from soil’s bounty.


She can taste with her own tongue,

no longer needs me to be

her metaphor for nourishment.

I am harvested.


Pasture


I am keeping my breasts hidden –

even when she says “ilk, ilk”

and pulls on my shirt.


Instead I hold her close

and give her a bottle

of another mammal’s milk.


As she holds the bottle

between her palms,

she pinches the skin on my belly.


Never again will she look up

from my breast, say “good”,

and continue suckling.


Overripe


Like two swollen summer fruit

I squeeze out their juice

watch it disappear in the heat.


Every day I watch them dwindle

the liquid reduced to droplets

leaving only the skin.


Every day I think:

“what if I nurse her

just one more time?”


Waning


The moon’s round light

is being squeezed out of the sky

diminished to a crest

then to memory.


Breast Series IV


Second Season


In bare-branch November,

my earth is tapped, two wells

begin to fill for another.


First the heat in my hips

melts, breaks me

until a body erupts


spilling cries and fluid

from the narrow gorge of my pelvis

to the pillow of my outer womb.


Only my hungry breasts

quiet his wet wails

and quivering lips.


Song of my Suso


On my bed or rocking chair,

while I sleep or eat

chances are nagsususo ako.


Suso, suso, suso is all I ever hear.


Right when I am going to take a bite

Of my bread, my mother says,

“Umiiyak si Emerson. Pasusohin mo.”


Mid-sentence in a conversation,

my daughter beckons:

“Mom, Emerson wants your suso.”


While I am taking a shower,

my husband calls, “I, I mean Emerson,

wants your suso.”


Between snores, the baby’s wordless cry

pierces through doors and walls,

lifts moon’s curtain from my eyes.


I shuffle to his crib, lift,

carry him to the creaking chair,

and hold him to my suso,


his moon in the night.


Mamma


Too early, I nurse the baby

in bed, slouched, with eyes closed,

curses hammering in my head.


My daughter gallops in

jumps on the bed

with her own baby boy.


He cries: “Wah, wah, wah!”

She lifts up her shirt,

holds his face to her ribs, singing,


“He wants my suso!”

As she bobs and bounces beside me,

I straighten up and smile.


Side by side, we feel the tug

Of need and love,

Our mammal roots.



Three Moons


Walking along a disappearing path,

the sea caresses me with warm fingers.

I breathe in the depth of cielo and estrellas.

Somewhere in this celestial mind

I reach horizons.

This is the nightscape – el nacimiento

of language, ang balík sa simulâ where I can look up

and say: Sana ngayón ay ang kalibúgan ng buwán,

and be laughed at.

“Anó sinábe mo?”

I wanted to say I wish the moon were full.

Instead, I said I lust for the moon.

But that’s also true. I do lust

for ang kabilógan ng buwán,

the full moon, la luna llena,

three satellites holding me together

gravity and tides

silver spheres

navigating my passages.


My Mother Cooks Pancit


She crushes cloves of garlic in a marble mortar

as if they were the cells spreading in my father’s throat.

Flame pulses beneath the wok.

She pours in oil, tests with a few pellets of her sweat.

Hot as his fever, the yellow liquid crackles, spits.

She stirs in roots, carrots, string beans and shrimp.

Green and orange scents color father’s frailness

(drain full of hair, days of chemo).

With kalamansi juice, patis, salt,

she seasons our sorrows, awakens our palates.

Rice noodles seeped in wooden bowl of jasmine water,

translucent, soft, drained then mixed in.

Her tenderness rises into the light,

thin white threads steaming into lace.

Kaen na she calls.

Stairs creak, slippers shuffle. We sit around the table,

eat to the hymn of silver forks and porcelain bowls.

Each forkful a surge of flavor:

my mother’s faithful hands.


Arroz Caldo


In my left arm, I am holding a hundred degree,

coughing child, head leaning against my shoulder.

In my right hand, steel knife

roughly cuts organic garlic, onion, and ginger.

Pieces scatter on the ground.

I am making my version of arroz caldo,

the rice soup my mother used to make

when we were fevered and ill:

golden broth from achuete, lumpy rice,

bite size pieces of tripe and chicken,

scallions, browned garlic, and lemon juice for garnish.

Now I am the mother in the kitchen.

Oil and salt, I sizzle the roots in wok.

I stir with wooden spoon,

adjust the child on my hip.

Add short grain brown rice,

firm tofu broken up with my right hand,

quarts of water and un-chicken bouillon cubes.

Cover. Simmer for an hour.

***

While we wait to eat,

sit in recliner in the living room,

Jazzy leaning against my torso

still in the arc of my left arm,

our legs under a black, tasseled Navajo blanket.

On the screen, two fish inside the cavernous mouth of the whale

hang on the cliff of its tongue:

-It’s time to let go

-How do you know something bad isn’t going to happen?

With trust and instinct, they let fall

into quaking pit, not knowing

if they will be food or free.

Outside the pot, the hallway, the windows, this chair,

inside our shifting bodies, there will be times

when we are swallowed. For now,

the scent and softening of simmering rice

and the certainty of this stew.


Motherless Christmas


On Christmas with my mother in ‘Pinas

the lights are dim, the kitchen is empty,

and no grain of rice, noodle, or lumpia

to taste. In the fridge, moldy adobo

in plastic quarts, tomatoes festering,

piles of pigs’ feet, bacon, hard loaf of bread.

It’s just a treeless, wreathless, giftless day.

Empty, carpeted space is our shrine.

Nativity scene hidden in garage

while evergreens whip against shutters, bring

wind in. Instead we abandon the house,

eat out: asados, maduros, rice, beans

make us quietly crave her steaming plates

that warm us like round, fresh lumpia wrappers.


Neglectful Gardener


Though the seeds I’ve sown in paper squares

Never flourished into fruit-bearing plants

And the potted begonia from the

Teacher-appreciation lunch is now

A seer, brown-edged casualty of my

Neglect, I have managed to boil many

Boxes of Annie’s macaroni shells

Turning white dust into a creamy sauce,

A meal my daughter devours with hands.

Even though the last sprig of cilantro

In the wooden herb box succumbed to weeds,

My son can worm around on his belly

Climb onto my lap and pull up my shirt

To harvest the fruit that keeps him growing.

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