FIRST GENERATION

 

Our grandparents sent long, descriptive letters from across the ocean, while we recited the pledge of allegiance to a flag of forty-eight stars in a one-room schoolhouse, the familiar language of home left at the door, along with the breath-damp wool of scarves and mittens in winter. I am an American now, we were made to recite again and again, and to write it in our notebooks until it became as familiar as our own names, the names which others could not or would not pronounce correctly, and could alter with the stroke of a pen. Our prayers, too, were in English, but only when spoken out loud. Our parents, aunts, and uncles braided the old language with the new, sometimes losing track, beginning again, sometimes inventing a new word where no other could be found. But our silence, in endless variations, was easily understood, neither awkward nor American. It sat as easily as a hammock stretched between two pines, swaying gently from east to west, responsive to the slightest breeze.

NAMES

 

My daughter's name was discovered by

her mother in a crowded bookstore,

as though it had already been

spoken for years, her middle name

crooned over the car radio

en route to the hospital through

a fresh dusting of December snow.

Some of our ancestors had names that

were changed and changed again,

anglicized by those who claimed

to know best, while others were deemed

unworthy to be recorded at all.

My aunt gave names to her stillborn,

keeping their sacredness to herself,

while our mother taught my brother

and I that our names were known

to the angels, and could be removed

from the Book of Life if we lied or

took the Lord's name in vain.

I thought of this whenever I wrote

in my Big Chief notebook, or read from

my children's Bible, as I thought of

my earthly father, who too remained

faceless, refusing me the family name.

But today, the winter solstice just

behind us, I can hear the gentle swelling

of choral music from the next room --

something that could only be

expressed in Latin, voices so light and airy they can only rise -- as my daughter

calls out one request or another

that I can't quite make out.

But, of course, I answer; I answer

without hesitation, as if this too were

a kind of song I stumbled into,

and must somehow learn on the spot.

JASPER

 

When I was a kid, I felt invisible more often

than not -- sometimes through a combination

of will and imagination, and sometimes

through the unseeing eyes of adults,

voices prone to shouting, from the kitchen

or the living room, "Get those kids

out of here! I can't hear myself think."

It was good, then, to have a vanishing act,

to know when to slip away, and when to stay gone.

Now that I am growing older,

gray, unassuming, fumbling for

my reading glasses, I again

feel myself becoming part of the unseen

or what my mother and aunts

used to refer to as a Jasper,

that eternal stranger passing through, ostensibly

harmless, whose name no one could recall.

There's no loneliness like a crowd,

and while this is neither comfort

not revelation, it is not without advantages.

In the coffee shop, I order without

small talk, I sit, off to the side, sketching a few words

the way an artist might sketch

a tree, a cloud, a figure in the distance

a world I may enter, as I always have, disturbing

no one in my coming or going.

HOUSE OF WONG

 

I never knew what they spoke of, my mother

and aunt, on those lazy Saturday afternoons in summer,

safe within the sanctuary of that restaurant,

always busy, its large temple-like doors painted

black and red, trimmed in extravagant gold,

a world far removed from the inquisitive ears of children.

We could not have imagined what our mothers

had lived through, the house of early horrors

they had endured daily as children, how the bodies

of men became threats against them,

could not have known the senseless anger of

a father who denied even their existence,

could not have known the cause and effect

set in motion long before we arrived.

We knew only the weekly ritual of their meeting,

their sisterly fellowship over greasy egg foo yong

and moo goo guy pan, the endless bowls of

sticky rice that occasionally made its way back to us

in those small white containers, wire handles

and waxy folds, stamped with a stately red pagoda.

If we were very lucky, a fortune cookie might be

tucked away in a purse, something simple

and sweet, the mysterious messages inside them

offering a riddle, or a bit of wisdom for our

childhood minds to ponder, considering as we cracked

them open what might happen next.

THE LAST SUPPER

 

When Aunt Anita got word from the clinic

that the cancer was fanning outward

like a web of newly shattered glass,

and that it was, in fact, inoperable, she promptly

planned a get together for family and friends,

an informal wake that she would attend,

and which she dubbed -- not without a touch

of gallows humor -- her last supper.

She arrived in a ball gown, sequined and sparkling,

her long dark hair newly styled, flitting

from table to table, bar stool to bar stool,

glasses raised and clinking, remembering both

the good times and the hard times with

those she knew -- and she knew nearly everyone.

She was their confidante, keeper of their

stories, their sorrows, and secrets.

The next morning she slipped quietly into

a coma, one long dream receding into

another, never again to wake.

Born into nothing, into a town so insignificant

that no one had bothered to name it,

she left this world, nonetheless, dressed to the nines,

a benevolent ruler with a Louisville slugger

tucked behind the bar, just in case.

She left, quite simply, glowing.