and yo, they fidduck you up!
Jimmy laughs, slaps Beni a low five.
Angel sucks his teeth, rolls his eyes.
Dime (Angel)
Why? Cuz she one of those good girls.
Straight A’s in class,
but wild inside: can
down a forty like a man. Nice ass.
Chinita too. Never been with one of those.
Googie’s boo wuz Filipina. She gave him two sons:
Mateo & Isagani. And scratches on his neck, son
~ she’s a panther.
He’d catch wreck
for breaking night. He hit her.
But that old drama’s not for
Me.
Hannah’s my dime ~ small. pure. Shining.
She.
Arirang
In the old Korean song, one lover leaves another
on Arirang Mountain. You won’t walk ten li
away from me without an ache in your feet,
she sings. Because that is the nature
of love: memories live on ~ make a home inside a body.
It’s wisdom from Hannah’s home ~ country,
from women who love in moon villages far from the sea.
When Hannah’s mother left Korea with Hannah in her belly,
she stole that song across the ocean,
sang it as a lullaby as she bathed Hannah’s young skin. Years later,
Hannah hums Arirang on her way to meet her first lover,
from the moon village of Queens to the moon village of Brooklyn.
April. Aigu. Balam innat dah. A fresh wind blows inside her.
Last night, the wind shook mimosas on Fifth
so she walks on pink petals to meet him.
Before Hannah
Before Hannah, Angel had crass,
blunt sex — once banged a girl atop a toilet,
ponytail hitting the rusted handle, once up the ass
of a thirty-one-year-old Mexican. Beni opened the door & laughed.
Angel hiked up his jeans and left,
threw a balled twenty on the flowered dresser.
Lust: a tequila shot he swallowed fast,
no chaser. Never had a girl who wept
black rivers on his shoulder,
kept her legs locked like stuck pliers,
kissed the cat-edges of his eyes.
The first Friday Hannah slept
over, she sat up in his bed, her eyes like small fires, she said, Angel, let’s be more. Let’s be real friends, too, You and I —
Roller Coaster
Hannah silently, steadily waits on Angel to call.
One day. Two days. Three days.
Finally, a ring!!! Sweet & lovely
to hear his hoarse, sandpaper voice tickle her ears.
A week or two will pass before she hears
from him again. Is he a player? Did he get arrested? Is he
alive?? She secretly frets, but when he calls again, she feigns coolness,
a lighthearted interest, when really, her whole being
is longing for another chance to be with him, to see
what he will do next to charm her, awaken her eyes, her lips, her heart, her hips.
This is what you get, she sighs to herself,
falling for a pretty sun-kissed boy with longer lashes than yours, girl.
She’s drawing their names graffiti~style in her binder in art class already,
entwined with hearts, stars, & crescent moons.
So when I get to see you again, Ma?
He asks sweetly. Soon, she says. Soon.
Globe
They lay under the wink of the silver globe
in Flushing Meadows Park under a melting golden sun,
(she kisses his neck) they’d just begun.
(she kisses his earlobe) Reading Neruda’s poems,
each word a hummingbird, midflight,
whirs silver ~ blue across the air —
her boy of flint and sinew, quietly despairs.
He sucks his teeth until he gets each word right.
His eyelids shudder every time they kiss
beneath golden-plumed cattails; his fingertips
fluid as they stroke and spin her hips.
She moves him too, those dusky afternoons,
whispering, Tonight I can write the saddest lines,
beneath the shadow of the world’s falling latitudes.
Kiss
Ay, who taught this boy how to kiss
like wind shirring a lake? His glinting,
lean, muscled boy~shape…Everything
he did with his mouth, a miracle —
how he slow-licked a red Popsicle
or rolled a Philly blunt, darkening
its skin with pointed tongue-tip…
In April, they bloom & kiss —
he grabs the wooden slats above his bunk,
hip bones grinding down. But lips —
barely grazing hers —
tongue~twirls. Quick
bites. He knots a cherry stem inside his mouth
& slips it in her mouth, O wicked gift!
Faith
Why are they in love, you ask? Why does
water love sky? Moon chase sun? Light
reflect light? Maybe they love & caress
the hurt little kids hiding inside both of them ~
when they let the swagger down they let
tears. let song. let ache. let kiss. They give
each other space to dance,
to touch, to sing, to sigh, to burp, to laugh,
to stand proud (Pa’lante mi gente! Mansei! Amen), to collapse,
to hold each other sacred, sweet, & solid.
Some red ~ gold ~ fire chemistry ~
body alchemy & spiritual transformation ~
cultural education ~ they are in Love thru Space
& Time ~ like all star ~ crossed first loves ~ Divine.
Who knows why angels orchestrate this Love?
Trust it is Blessed from up Above. Amen.
Weaver
O what a web she weaves! A dazzling
and intricate thread of lies and half ~
truths designed to keep her mom in comfortable
darkness, she’ll say ~ I’m studying
at Carina’s tonight ~ we have a test in math
tomorrow ~ I need my study buddies ~ please ~
her parents, overworked & underpaid immigrants, leave
her be. She commutes on bus & trains thru badly
lit, grimy, urine ~ smelling stations just to taste
one hour of freedom ( ~ Queendom ~ ) by his side, his hand
twirling her curls at dusk. She’ll be home late
after she dances a few steps of salsa with La Fania All Stars
blasting on the boom box of his porch steps ~
mmm ~ a new romance sways in the sweltering heart of Brooklyn.
Hannah’s Parents
(Pssst. Just letting you know, dear Reader, that sometimes,
these sonnets don’t rhyme. Don’t keep perfect couplets,
terza rimas, quatrains, or strict form, because Life often spills
outside da lines! Just like paint, just like pain, papi ~ just like
there are no words in English to describe to you
da Han of Hannah’s parents ~ who carried memories
of war in their inner children, who as nail salon owners
would never have a chance to afford or go to therapy,
as they are country people of green valleys and full harvest moons,
all their golden beauty lost in cold white cities where their names
are butchered & mispronounced & made fun of daily,
while dollars still soften their callused hands. Hannah’s parents,
overworked & silently missing Soju nights
with watermelon & squid anju & singing Arirang
& Sarang~ga with drunk, sloppy, & happy
Koreans who look & sound just like them ~ a kind of heaven.
They miss that, but cannot articulate nostalgia (Corea) to their born~here~daughter~
the beloved mother~land they left behind to give her this,
swinging golf clubs with thwacking fury over manicured green lawns
so perfect they make a man believe he has freedom.)
They come home when late-night Letterman
blares with canned laughter, long after Hannah
makes her rice & kim & kimchee rolls & tucks
her younger sister into bed, long after all the train rides
and bus transfers & taxi rides that transport their daughter
to the quiet pockets in the playgrounds,
seaports, beaches, corners, stoops, tree stumps that her & her lover use
as backdrops to their quietly blooming romance.
It all starts with a dance, she sighs, in remembrance, she
loves the way he always holds her hand &
pretends to lay out magic carpets in the rain ~
she feels a cartoonish, ballooning, indescribable joy with him ~
her secret, sweet angel tucked in the silver wings of Brooklyn.
Train
She sings, I will love you anyway,
even if you cannot stay, echoing
Mary J as she waits for the R train,
voice husky as coarse grain.
Morning sun at Queensboro Plaza
casts slim white bars on the ground —
mute piano keys commuters pound
with shuffling, transient feet. Are
we all drifters, made of smoke?
She’s on her way
from Bayside to Bushwick,
four subway transfers, two hours away. She
prays for the G to come quickly. She starts to sing,
when the train steals her song with its metal wind.
Rivers
It’s always an adventure to go meet Angel. She prefers to travel
with a flock of her gold~hooped, gum~snapping, cute~curled girlfriends
for a double or group flirt~date instead of alone, becuz as a Chinita,
she has to keep her head humble & eyes down on da train,
not wanting to attract the glare of a jealous girl who may want to slice
her pretty cheek (slashings on da train were all da craze),
or a lurking subway creep. Sometimes tho, another boy
with a thick Nautica jacket & a sweet smile would slide
next to her, say, Hi mami ~ where you going?
And she’d have to balance friendly flirting
with a clipped response, strong but not too tough,
not enuf to be called a stuck-up b*tch or jumped.
Whoever he was would get a message when she said,
I’m going to see my man. Sometimes, they’d still escort her,
in that courteous, crowding way, until they finally gave way
when hearing Angel calling Oooooh oooooh for her down the street.
He reads her face in a second, ay ~ telepathic!, and she
can always tell when mistrust hardens his eyes. She rubs his shoulders
and runs her fingers slowly down the river of his lean, muscular back.
Vietnam
Puerto Rican girls cock hips. Roll eyes. Suck
teeth. Bump her shoulder hard on his block.
Once, Vanessa screamed at Hannah, Go back to Vietnam,
bitch, then turned to Angel and sobbed, Why? Why her? Why not me?
Angel stood, speechless. For him, it was no better.
Stone-faced, balding Chinos on the 7 train
drill holes in his head. Frown. Cock, train
their mouths like handguns ready to spit at him. Or her.
Sometimes, Hannah shifts in her hard orange seat.
Sometimes she throws her leg over his, spits back a stare,
kisses Angel with rough despair.
At home, in the shower, they take time
scrubbing each other’s limbs with care;
white lather, fingers buried in wet hair.
Saints
Angel always wore saints around his wrists
& neck. A gold cross & gold chain with Jesus,
escapularios & beads blessed by a Cuban babalao
given to him by his paralegal cousin Jessie,
and wooden bracelets painted with various haloed saints,
he’s blessed with many. He gently slips
one off his wrist and onto hers…mi amor,
mi luz, mi reina, he softly sings, makes her feel blessed,
sacred, sexy, and sweet. She wears
his gifts with gratitude, changes her attitude
from shy to strong, from soft to bold.
When he’s in the mood,
he traces her shoulder blades with sweet delight,
she shakes, shedding her scales
and blossoms into Woman in his light ~
grateful to be held & serenaded through the nights.
Hot Chips
They’re splayed in bed, watching The Simpsons.
She’s eating a ninety-nine-cent bag of Utz hot chips,
red dust coating her fingers. He’s unbuckled, hips
thrust up. Please. He grins. Please suck
it. No, she snaps. Not now. What
the fuck. She swats him, but his hand keeps
seeking hers. One minute. Ten seconds. Her lips
curl into a grin. Maybe. During a commercial…his luck,
Cheerios bounce on-screen. She groans, wipes her mouth,
ducks down. His feet shoot up like arrows
at the ceiling. Then, he twitches, drools,
throws her off. Stop, he cries. It burns! Hot…hot…hot chips! Dashes out
her room, bathes it in the sink. I’ll get the milk, she cries, and runs below.
Ahhh…He sighs, and dips. She punches him — that’s what you get, fool.
Adidas Prince
Underneath it all, Angel is a gentle man,
there’s a patience in how he courts her,
kneels on one knee to tie her Adidas laces,
even in front of his abuela & his little brother,
Rafi. She blushes, touched, stirred by how he bakes her a chocolate cake
for her sweet sixteen, clenches a rose between his teeth. Tender lover.
She loves how his swagger announces his divinity
at weekend dancehall clubs — he’d hold her hand
and dance for hours with her at Latin Quarters and the Copa,
then hit after~hours clubs like two hot whirlwinds of beauty and grace.
She’d plan elaborate lies to meet him. Addicted
to da feel of his fingers, soft on her neck, his Juicy Fruit breath.
He rolls White Owl joints and blows clouds into her mouth
kissing her, tickling her, licking her, nuzzling her.
They keep each other happy, safe, a
nd warm.
(Yes. Here Angel and Hannah ~ nestled in the calm before the storm.)
Broken Vessels
After I drop him off, I drive
home down Cypress Avenue
to the Interboro Expressway.
My stomach clenches at a tight turn,
a sharp fear of losing him
in this slick, lipglossed city.
A grainy dusk descends on all
car roofs, silvering them
into a black & white movie,
but I’m no starlet. God. I breathe slow,
clench the wheel, knowing I’ll stay,
whether he hurts me, whether we
skid, flip, lie trapped in a box of flame —
my heart’s strapped in, belt etched with his name.
Home
Mi casa, tu casa, mi vida. Come. Stay with me.
Cada noche, he sings, Let’s make a home together, ma.
We grown enough, yo. I want you Here with me.
Pretty please, mi reina. He bats his thick, lush lashes,
coquettish as a drag queen, takes her hand. Kisses
it, daintily, tenderly. How can she resist?
She giggles. Ay, Angel. I’d Love to, cariño. Pero my parents…
she sighs…Look, ma. When you ready
to be free ~ come to me. Estoy aquí. Esperándote.
They lay curled in bed like two commas
facing each other, quiet, creating
a heart, a nest, a space for Home.
No crazy K-drama,
stress, or tension, just a warmth, pulsing
like a rosebud about to bloom. Sí, she says,
and holds him dearly, like a mama.
I’m…(migration)
Maybe flying is in her
blood and bones ~ great-aunts & cousins
flying to America to escape the trauma
of the forgotten Corean war
that left her mom orphaned at five & changed her family’s fate ~
burying Celadon vases & twenty-four-karat gold hairpins
in jars of kimchee, a hive of bustling, displaced cousins & refugees
Angel & Hannah Page 2
