Angel & Hannah

by Ishle Yi Park

  to shy, long-haired Solibel,

  who lives across the stairwell

  from Angel’s titi Bella;

  bendita, they say she cries at night, well

  after her three boys be sleeping,

  God, watch over her please, as well

  as Alma’s baby, my last grandson, Rafi.

  Secret (Hannah)

  A pain so big I can barely understand it.

  Talk with Angel? Yeah right.

  But Rafi. Oh Rafi.

  No turning back now. How? Once his fingers

  locked round my neck & I galloped

  him down Crescent, his giggles bubbling like soda pop,

  once he made me peanut-buttered toast,

  called me BananaFanaMomanaHannah, that’s it.

  I’m locked in. Not pity anymore,

  or tenderness, it’s too close,

  this pain breaks me like old wishes.

  He’s my brother now too. And he’s got a secret

  tucked in his redblood cells and it hurts

  to look at a kid & think about Death…

  it hurts cuz his hair sticks up funny when he scratches it, cuz

  he burps the McDonald’s theme song, battles dragons, opens

  bodega doors for you like a little prince…it’s disgusting

  to look at a kid & think about his expiration date. You want to vomit.

  And you want him to never vomit,

  wanna give him every Marvel comic, every Game Boy,

  every small happiness, wanna break Joey’s arm for sucker-punching him,

  but you gotta let him fall & fight,

  hurt & cry & you must honor his plight,

  cuz he doesn’t wanna be babied,

  he wants to Live.

  So, you let him run, wild,

  but corner-eye-spy him, less than a block away,

  play older sis for a day.

  Angel, his eyes

  go soft when he looks at Rafi,

  even tho he talks hard like an older brother should.

  Nah, girl, we never talk about it — what is there to say?

  My little brother got AIDS? No word could change a thing…

  he was born with it, he’ll die with it, only question, when…

  only solution, make his days as fun & gentle as we can…

  and Rafi’s so cute, ma, when he skips between us,

  he says, Banana Hannah, Angel — can you fly me?

  Please? Fly me! So, we gotta grab his hands and swing him

  like a crescent moon, his laughter pealing,

  again, again! We gotta lift him for two blocks

  till our arms get sore, even when he wants

  more, more, more!

  So we gotta try ~ we fly him

  till he almost grows wings, nena. Ay.

  That kid makes my heart sing.

  Buggin’

  Ooh! Youse is kissing! Rafi shrieks, when

  Hannah & Angel flop in bed. He peers up close,

  watching from inches away.

  Are you guys gonna get married?

  Yes, Angel says, now go away.

  Rafi disappears, comes back hauling

  a waist-high mirror — Look at ya’ll! Look!

  He scrunches his face and moans…

  two peanut butter jelly sammiches

  sit messy on the dresser. Breakfast! Rafi grins.

  I made it myself. Hannah takes a bite and kisses him.

  Thank you, baby, she says. You’re so sweet…Nah,

  I’m a bug…I’m buggin’, he says,

  strut ~ hopping into the kitchen.

  Monster

  El SIDA. Angel calls it the monster under his breath.

  At night, it spiders windows with a hammer.

  Snatches Tío Demas, two cousins, his mother

  from bed. Sucks air out their mouths, blows death

  in ~ a grotesque kiss. Thins cheeks to rice paper.

  A white moss crystallizes lips. Sores sprout: blossoms.

  Wrist-veins, green stems.

  Worst, it leaves a mother too thin to give one last blessing

  to a devastated son.

  Sometimes a man needs

  to be held, no questions.

  Hannah rubs his lower back in circles.

  Her eyes soak in his slump.

  I’ll protect you, she wants to say, but can’t.

  Rafi’s Voice

  When I die I don’t want to be buried

  in dirt cuz I saw a kitten last week

  dead behind the school fence —

  and he had bugs and maggots all crawling

  out of his ear into his eye —

  white, tiny, eating him from the inside.

  When I die, Paloma, put me in a box

  and burn me in a fire like I seen on Channel 13 —

  then take all my smoke and dirt,

  all the small handfuls of me,

  and climb the Empire State, Paloma —

  climb it and throw me in the wind

  so I can fly like those pigeons

  who black the sky with their wings

  Alma’s Voice

  She’s a keeper, I told Angelito, cuz the way

  She play with Rafi, my littlest angel,

  the way she laughs with him all day & doesn’t tire

  of his constant bothering and games.

  She ain’t a wild chile like me —

  that’s plain to see. He needs a good girl

  in this too-tough world. One who will

  treat him like gold. And I see —

  the little things they do to please

  each other — the sweets, the door openings,

  the kisses and back rubs and holding hands —

  it’s cute. Even innocent looking to me. I like it.

  He needs more sugar in his life. I pray one day,

  they make a baby & he makes her his wifey.

  S.O.S.

  When does their boat tip over?

  What swells cause them to lurch,

  turn sick inside, deep in da thick of it?

  Perhaps when she saw Angel’s eyes roll back

  in his head the first time, as he dozed off

  in front of her ~ slow motion, sweet,

  heartbreaking. His dad was a junkie,

  strung out on that sleepy killa

  and he left Angel’s mom. Sometimes at night,

  Angel would take flight, while she was aroused, alive,

  awake, with makeup perfect, baby ~ hair gelled,

  present & ready for Love ~ he left her bereft, ignored, unwrapped,

  dozing in hard drugs, caught in a generational despair

  & an addict’s affair far deeper than she could bear.

  What kind of papi can he be, when half the time, he’s a zombie?

  So quickly it erodes, her sandcastle fairy ~ tale fantasy.

  Sick

  They don’t hear rivers running through walls anymore.

  Stiff legs with curled toes, three

  stick bodies rubbing for fire, for heat.

  The landlord’s ignored all seven complaints she

  hurled into his blinking machine. Rafi

  sleeps between them like a squirrel nestled in

  an oak’s hollow heart. Lately he coughs,

  sneezes up green phlegm. His pale skin greens; he’s small

  and dying. Hannah and Angel feel a thin-edged pain

 
slice through them like razor cuts.

  Crying, Hannah carries him piggyback again

  to Wyckoff’s emergency room. Rafi breathes

  through a tube. Angel seethes.

  Visiting hours over, but he refuses to leave.

  Toothache

  This time, it’s for Angel. She holds his limp head and cradles him

  in the sick-lit, moaning room. It’s aiight, she soothes,

  thumbing pages over his head. Romeo, that spoiled prince —

  he had it easy, she fumes.

  He had the luxury of attending masquerades, engaging in sword play —

  he never had to beg to fix a swollen tooth

  at Wyckoff’s emergency room because he

  had no Medicaid. She lays Angel’s throbbing cheek on her shoulder.

  Blue plastic seats

  steal any ideas of comfort. All he had to worry about — the plain miseries

  of love, she thinks. She stashes her schoolbook.

  Tousles Angel’s hair, watches Days of Our Lives on a hanging tv.

  Soledad

  Hannah’s in the bathroom, fixing her curls for the movies

  when the cordless phone rings. Soledad whispers,

  You there? Hannah sits at the tub’s edge. Wassup?

  He came over to chill, listen to the radio, then…

  he shoved my face in the pillow, boots still

  on, and took me from behind, the way

  I never did it. She sobs. Bastard. Baby Daddy.

  He said, it’s mine. It’s mine. Hannah grips the chill

  sink ledge to keep from trembling. Ay, Soli,

  she says. Soli Soli Soli.

  No one should ever do that to you, baby. He had no right…

  So I’m back on the shit. Soli cuts her off. I had to hit the pipe.

  Silence. He’s coming — I’m out. Click.

  Hannah’s world shrinks: a knot of black, tangled hair down the sink.

  Girls’ Night

  They lounge around a plastic kitchen table, legs splayed

  in humid heat — Hannah, Bella, Rosie, Soledad, Antoinette.

  After twelve Coronas with limes stuffed down sweaty necks, the girls let

  loose: about Louie shoving the barrel of a silver .380

  down Rosie’s throat, all fucked up on a cocktail of coke & weed,

  how Loco bolted Suhayla into her bedroom, barring her

  from Bushwick Night School. Hannah remembers

  when she first met Loco, how he bragged about isotopes, his GED.

  Bella confesses Duke once dragged her by her braids down Jefferson Street,

  Soli, of getting her head pinned to concrete with Craze’s new Nike sneaker.

  Hannah winces. Visions of butterflies pinned to flatboard, feebly

  pulsing rubbed-off wings. Suddenly, she feels vulnerable, weaker,

  an orange rind split with a sharp nail.

  Outside Bella’s propped-open window, a bottle shatters into hail.

  Milagros

  Of all Angel’s titas she meets, Hannah is most

  spellbound by Milagros ~ Jessie’s mom ~

  a tough downtown lawyer by day, da bomb

  bella boricua by night ~ with fly hot~pink boas

  and thick black liner, who comes around once

  in a blue, with her stunning morena girlfriend Destiny ~

  they dance in Village balls & discos & live so wonderfully

  free ~ it seems ~ free from boys who jail & hurt & insult with blunt

  words & fists ~ they spread glitter & joy & tears & magic

  when they come around, bring Barbie dolls for kids

  & six-packs of Coronas to loosen up their stressed~out parents ~

  they don’t stick around for any drama, honey, just long enough to Bless ~

  to make Hannah dream another kind of life ~

  filled with more freedom, laughter, more fierce joy & happiness.

  Turn your eyes from me,

  they overwhelm me.

  ~ Song of Songs

  III.

  Otoño

  Fall

  And fleckéd darkness like a drunkard reels

  down Hart Street, while a long-fingered Winter steals

  Alma’s last silvery gasp — so Angel’s left a motherless child with no path —

  And you, dear Reader, in your loving home,

  have you ever felt so deer-wounded or alone?

  Like a stone leaping into the sea…

  He’s locked in, but he wants to break free!

  For a spell, she grew a little angel in her womb,

  but Gotham wasn’t ready for a gift so sweet

  & they didn’t have money to make ends meet.

  So hopeless, she gives up her & Angel’s baby

  & prays for her God to forgive her daily.

  She finds out he cheated; she’s left disenchanted,

  so he tattoos her name on his arm, not to be lonely, or stranded

  but branded for eternity — his lover’s own cherished thing…

  they cling to each other, fear what nights may bring…

  Glow (Hannah)

  My whole body’s tingling down to my

  fingers. Something in my tummy warm &

  lovely as a foal, a light I can barely

  contain…I feel…rapturous?

  Water breaking through a vase. Chaos ~ a dancing star in me!

  My belly, housing hot energy

  sparked by sunsets, sad eyes, kisses…a living

  thing made by Love. How miraculous? I veer

  away from cars, smog, stop in to a fancy-lit

  café on Tenth Street, craving

  fresh lemon slices.

  I wanna guard myself from city ~ evils — my body is wiser than me.

  Young lioness, ready to rip apart

  any beast. Is this what it feels like? Aigu, uma, is this how you glowed?

  Was this private motherlove enough? This quiet-body bliss?

  Tell me. What should I do? I bite my lip, soak blood in my napkin.

  Job Hunt

  Forty-second Street. Home of the hand-pocket-hustle,

  always a help-wanted sign strung on a smudged glass window.

  Angel enters the low-roofed BBQ joint, Hannah in

  tow behind, into a cigar-stained musk. Lamps frayed

  with red tassels. He asks for an application; fills

  it out at the bar table. A blank

  look on his face. He fills in spaces slow as dust; she flanks

  his side, hisses correct spellings. One waitress trips. She

  spills her mug of dark ale watching them cheat,

  fidget, stall. His right hand stutters d’s into b’s.

  Hannah hisses, Stupid.

  In ten minutes, Angel rips up his splotched paper. Exits.

  She trails behind, wordless. They hail a taxi.

  Inside, she sobs, loud. He cries, soundless.

  Hunger

  he’s so hungry he can’t even think

  a bag of chips for breakfast and only if he’s lucky

  angie will fix him

  a plate of leftover pernil but it’s chips

  pizza most days plus a few sniffs

  of that good old yeyo tired n broke

  wired n broke drinking coke

  sniffin coke he’s sick of it ready to quit but shit

  one day a week is not enough cuz

  by monday he’s down to quarter waters

  f
rom jaquelina’s so angel dreams

  of barbecued baby back ribs ordered at charlies

  or a rough slab of twelve-oz steak

  tender not tough

  Uma (Hannah)

  I’m curled in bed, clutching a pillow,

  stomach rippling. Nothing in the fridge

  ’cept peanut butter & beer. All of a sudden,

  hunger collapses me.

  Wanna week at home, uma’s galbi chim,

  seven plates of banchan, spinach, meluchi,

  kimchee, kochujang, cucumbers, salmon head,

  talking to her barefoot in the kitchen

  while the fan chops smoke into ribbons,

  or after, when I’m full, oily, bloated,

  when I nest my palms over my gut & lull.

  Rest like a hammock swing

  under fading light before apa

  comes home wheezing curses,

  before afternoon sours like old kimchee.

  Oh uma, I miss you uma-ing me.

  Beni

  Hannah yells at Angel

  in front of Sady’s brownstone

  steps. They’re shaded by maples,

  but her voice carries. Beni

  walks towards them, she clams up.

  Ice flows in her veins.

  Yo, what’s the problem? he drawls.

  I hear your mouth two blocks

  away, up Harman.

  It’s him, she spits,

  hands attacking air,

  but Beni warns, Chill, chill.

  Angel’s a man, not a kid,

  ma. Watch how you talk to him.

  Apa

  Watch how you talk to him ~

  Beni’s words ring in her

  hours later like a morning alarm ~

  didn’t she hiss the same thing

  once to her father? Watch

  how you talk to my uma, each word

  a dagger…she brushes her teeth, enveloped

  in quiet. Angel sidesteps as she enters the bedroom,

  filling it with her buzz.

  After all those years,

  she thinks,