I am on my way to being healed from divorce
The cracked vinyl makes my skin itch,
but I tell him
I am as ready as hunger.
He flips me on my back,
and with a M#136 hunting knife
carves the top layer of my skin.
“Does it hurt?”
Only like it should, I answer.
The top layer is folded off.
Scarred by years of abuse.
He places it at the foot of the bed.
The second layer is thinner —
lies I’ve told myself
lies, I’ve told others —
but just as difficult to cut off.
Layer after layer sliced free
like the leaves of a cabbage.
The real you is under there.
I let him parcel out
piece by piece
this scarred flesh
fingertips to toetips,
slant of my bare back,
curve of my throat,
until only the dermal expanse
of my chest remains.
“This will hurt the most.”
I believe him.
Armor grew thickest here.
I lean back,
brace myself for the pain,
Smile at the clear reflection
in the knife’s blade.
◊♦◊
I find out my mother is selling vegetables on the roadside
It has been twenty years
since I’ve played in the river mud,
scavenged fruit for a meal, and
begged for death
on the small bridge.
I am driving past
the tall telephone poles
spray-painted with numbers
that bring me closer to her roadside stand.
My eyes blink out the odd numbers
#14
#10
#8
#6
#4
#2
until I see her
at the junction selling fruit
from a makeshift table.
I get out of the car,
walk up close. But I can
barely stand the sight of her:
scars, where her eyes should be,
a flat space, where once was
a proud cheekbone.
She says, “You him, ain’t you?”
All I can do is look
at the Ziploc bags
filled with cherry tomatoes.
“Yes.”
I open my arms to hug her and
take a step closer
but she stops me with her voice,
“No sense trying to be what isn’t. And
no sense trying to change
what can’t be changed.”
I can feel the sun
weaken, it must be
slowly slipping into the
ocean’s pocket, I think
to myself. I was ready to
fight with you,
beloved woman, drug-taker,
mother. But I drowned
too long ago
in the mire
of those memories.
Now, we are just two ghosts.
Our blindness, the only souvenirs
from that existence.
◊♦◊
I have returned home because the grandmother who raised me has died
My 87-year-old Grandmother
is on the roof picking mangoes
when she trips and
falls to her death.
After they clean the orange pulp
from her face, the care home
that she has owned for 40 years
summons me back, and regifts me
a childhood of games in
taro patch silt, views of
cane fires, & somersaults
from the bridge.
My palms scoop the wind,
its invisible strands divided,
by my outstretched fingers
aboard this truck
traveling North across
empty plots of pineapple-land.
I lie to myself:
it is good to be home, the
miles between here,
married life, & children
stretching comfortably
over a broad ocean,
my grief unravels
in the wind, thread
by thread.
I ask myself,
“Would Grandmother have been proud?”
I stumble out the front seat, look
as the road curves
into the past.
I take a breath,
hope that it still remembers
the weight of my feet as
I pass the banyan tree,
because it has been twenty-two years
since the puppies were
placed into burlap bags, and
thrown into the river.
I’ve forgotten
the color of their coats, and
the shape of their heads.
I am in front of the house
where the police came to save
my brother and I hiding in the
thicket of lantana
from our father’s aim.
Grandmother rescues me.
She teaches me Hawaiian star lines
to guide me back home to her.
The stars fly up from the horizon.
I pray their names now
to guide you home.
Ke Kā o Makaliʻi – the Bailer,
Ka ʻIwikuamoʻo – the Lizard’s Spine,
Ka Manaiakalani – the Great Fish Hook,
Ka Lupe o Kawelo – the Kite of Kawelo.
I love and miss you, grandma.
And I am sad and happy
that you have taught me,
there is nothing more
unvalued than a parent
that has belonged to you forever.
◊♦◊
Mrs. Massie overdosed
at the Kalia beach. They scatter
her ashes among the lilys
in the backyard so she is
close enough to hear
the Wednesday night karaoke.
Mr. Watanabe spent years in therapy and
emerged as Gail Watanabe. She is
the heart of Pacifica. She plans
the week activities and adores
planning fieldtrips to the aquarium
because old people like dolphins.
She volunteers at the
LGBT Center and has
dinner on Sundays
with her adopted children.
Her best friend is Mrs. Konou and they
are inseparable. They claim it
is because they are
the same dress size and
borrow each other’s clothing.
But likely, it is because
they both have lost children.
Mrs. Konou likes to travel.
Her room is accented with virgin alpaca and
vases from her travel.
After Mrs. Massie dies, Mr. Heifara
returns to Tahiti to live
with his daughter and grandsons.
Glaucoma slowly steals his sight but
he defiantly scavenges sheet metal
from the Fa’a’a Protest to build a
barbecue grill so his grandson
can grill fresh fish from the reef.
Every Sunday, Mr. Heifara
visits his wife’s gravesite
to lay a single tiare flower.
His stage 4 cancer slows his
movements, now cautious and deliberate.
He has already laid out his
funeral clothes, placed the printed shirt
black slacks, and pandanus hat
on a chair next to his dresser.
When I hear this,
I take a flight to see him.
He is thin like bamboo stalks and
needs a cane to stand.
He hugs me. I am home.
We sit and eat a meal
of fish in coconut milk,
breadfruit, and Chinese take-out.
I tell him I miss my grandmother and
he understands. He has lived
so many years
in the grip of grief.
He leans over the table,
grips my hand forcefully:
“The ground will always be uneven.
There is a comfort and understanding
in knowing this.”
The final advice from
the only father figure
I have ever known.
I stand, pull him into
me, and try to breath in the essence of
this man who raised me without
violence, but I cannot.
I take off my shirt,
jump into the ocean water,
watch as he becomes smaller and
smaller from the distance.
I love you, Mr. Heifara. I will remember
the life lessons you have taught me
on the small porch of Pacifica.
In this ocean, I am now shedding my grief,
so I can appear before you
the strong man that you have raised,
to guide you to your final journey.
When your last breath is gone,
I want to remind you
that death might end your life,
but it will never end my love.
◊♦◊
I have been afraid of this returning to this house because evil lived here
The inside of the closet doors
are scarred from our fingernails.
The click of laths witness to our
cries. The fingers of floorboards,
stained by our blood.
These patterns that now speak to me
through the wood:
You are not broken.
So, I have returned,
to prepare this house
for its last breath.
This house, no longer
a house of fire.
The last breeze
fills the house, the walls
swell for the last time.
This house, no longer
a house of wind.
The last drops of water
dry on the lips of the faucet.
This house no longer
a house of water.
With my homemade twine, I
tack the canopy
to the cornice,
silence, this tongue of nylon
with wood and nails. I
board the windows, to
obstruct the views
of the mountains.
I slosh gasoline into the
floorboards and closets.
I drench the dolls,
belts, and clothing.
I stand at the front door, and
take everything all in.
I grab a match from my pocket,
strike it against the friction strip and
toss it onto the sofa.
Soon, the room is a furnace.
I watch as the flames
become a huge mouth that
eats my childhood
in slow motion.
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Photo credit: by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash
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