Cleave
Page 2
II.
/'MĪGRəNT/
Of an animal, especially a bird. A wandering species
whom no seas nor places limit. A seed who survives despite
the depths of hard winter. The ripple of a herring
steering her band from icy seas to warmer strands.
To find the usual watering-places despite
the gauze of death that shrouds our eyes
is a breathtaking feat. Do you ever wonder why
we felt like happy birds brushing our feathers
on the tips of leaves? How we lifted our toes
from one sandbank and landed – fingertips first –
on another? Why we clutched the dumb and tiny creatures
of flower and blade and sod between our budding fists?
From an origin of buried seeds emerge
these many-banded dagger wings.
We, of the sky, the dirt, and the sea. We,
the seven-league-booters and the little-by-littlers.
We, transmigrated souls, will prevail.
We will carry ourselves into the realms of light.
THE STOLEN GENERATION
i. The Severing
To pull apart, separated by skin and stock
To set asunder, taken and scattered like dandelion seeds
To part or open (the lips, eyelids), examine with a fine-tooth comb
To slice the skull and measure the brain, to prove what is already
known
To cleave a family and watch it unravel
To hinder reunification
To disjoin a body from its color
To disperse its history, its memory, its own recognition of self
To make sense of a loss that severe
ii. The Snatching
1869 11th November
BE IT ENACTED…
It shall be lawful
from time to time
to make orders
to rescind
or alter
that is to say
For the place of –
For the care custody and education of –
From time to time
Every child living
shall be deemed to be within,
under, before justice.
1886 2nd September
WHEREAS…
The duty to care
The duty to care
to protect
iii. The Searching
To make sense of a loss that severe
they searched for each other
for one hundred years.
One mother would hide
her daughter in plain sight
by blanketing her body
with charcoal. They didn’t take
full-bloods, only the ones
with hints of European blush
in their cheeks.
One day they went to the river
and forgot the power of water.
Charcoal carried off the body
in a rippling sweep.
They carried her away, skin still gray-wet.
Another mother brought her infant son
to the hospital sick with a stomach bug.
She left him for treatment
and six months later implored,
I am writing to ask if you would let me know
how B– is and how long before
I can have him back home.
I have not forgot
I got a baby in there.
iv. The Cleaving
The word “cleave” means both to cut and to cling.
The child cleaved to her mother The child cleaved from her mother
The difference a word makes in the forest of our longing.
He cleaved to the bed, body damp with dream sweat, eyes sealed so tightly
rivulets of tears streamed from the corners. His mind cleaved
to the fading image of a woman’s (a mother’s?) tender face.
Body buoyant and brown, she was cloven from the river.
Mid-stroke, her limbs cleaved like the frayed ends of a rope.
How do you begin to reconcile a cleaving?
We try to hold each other without touching
Voices scramble white noise fills our bones
THE LAST STRAW
“U.S. woman put adopted Russian son on one-way flight alone back to homeland”
–NY Post headline, 9 April 2010
Little boy in a yellow jacket
stinger pinned to the zipper
on his chest a note
written in a hand
not his own Russia-bound
After giving my best… for the safety of…
Who belongs to whom?
How do we dance without
the proper shoes?
He drew a picture…
The carousel
of abandonment
endlessly
spinning
Of our house burning…
How many
splinters
does it take
to start
a fire?
I was lied to … misled by …
A fuse
a body
pleas for
water
nothing
but
matches
OPERATION BABYLIFT
“We bucket-brigade-loaded the children right up the stairs into the airplane.”
–Col. Bud Traynor, pilot
April 4, 1975
Skin still wet with mother’s grief.
I brought my baby to them,
I admit it.
Airlift Takes Off
Tucked in cardboard and stowed.
Two to each seat.
At 23,000 Feet Systems Fail
In the event of being born
in a country ravaged by war –
Explosion
I heard rumors that mixed babies
would be burned alive. Retaliation
for consorting with the enemy.
Split Cables
Save – Rescue – Liberate
Descends
I asked about the papers. How
will I find her? How will we reunite
in America?
Skids in Rice Paddy
In the event their skin is soaked in gasoline –
4:45pm
Those who didn’t fit
would make the trip
in the cargo area.
Crosses Saigon River
Under the circumstances,
the evacuation became necessary –
Thrashes Trench
The promise of reunion
too appealing to pass up.
Fractures in Four
Jam-packed flock, throng of new bones.
Fuel Ignites
It was no longer a choice.
Fifty Adults
The only option.
& Seventy-Eight Children
FIRE AND RICE
“There were large sheaves of papers and batches of babies. Who knew which belonged to which?”
–Bobby Nofflet, worker with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Saigon
Though the first flight crashed,
it didn’t stop them.
Planes full of moonless hair
black as peppercorn.
The mission seemed simple.
The same planes that shelled cities
swapped blitz for babies.
Procedural paperwork waived
to expedite departure.
Mothers made promises of meet again –
Yellow-haired surrogates burying
the truth of it –
Meet: In the dike next to the river,
mouths full of fire and rice.
What then may I do
but cleave to what cleaves me.
–Li-Young Lee, “The Cleaving”
III.
ABSTRACT
&nb
sp; Igneous rocks are formed by fire. Conceived in the belly of a volcano, lava drips down its side and deposits at the base. As a result of cooler temperatures, the magma grows viscous on the earth’s surface and undergoes a process of solidification. Basalt, granite, obsidian. Broken down by weathering and erosion, the rock will become sediment, loose bits of matter, the dregs. Later, these same pieces will accumulate and lithify to form sedimentary rocks. Conglomerate, limestone, sandstone. Over time, this same rock will succumb to pressure and sink back down inside the earth to be heated and melted, metamorphosized. Gneiss, marble, quartzite. Once deep enough in the earth’s mantle, the metamorphic rock will liquefy and return to the magma chamber.
Or will the rock evade erosion, unwilling to be weathered? Will the rock rise up again instead of returning to its magma pillow? Or will the rock crumble into tiny particles of sand and pass its time in a shoal on the bottom of the ocean?
My body, a stone. Weathered, compacted, compressed. Softened by another body’s tender heat. A hardened face wont to wince. If I jump from a cliff, will the canyon catch me? Or will I tumble, endlessly moving, endlessly seeking a place to rest my head?
INTERVIEW WITH DR. HARLOW
What do you taste in the morning when you lick your lips?
Are they soft or split, cracked by the Wisconsin wind? Do you
cover your mouth when you cough? With your elbow or your
hand? When the germs are floating through the air, do you
imagine where they land? How those minuscule microbes descend
with invisible parachutes? The power of gravity on weightless
spit? Do you smirk when they fall in your colleague’s coffee?
How do you make sense out of loneliness? At night beneath the
buzz of fluorescent light, do you unlatch the lock? Do you count
their inhalations as they sleep? Do you taste their morning breath?
The little bacteria floating in the air and landing on the tip of
your tongue? If it lands on your tongue, do you swallow it?
Can you tell me what it tastes like? Do you feel the microbes
twist as they sink down your esophagus? How does it feel
to watch them hold each other’s hands, their woolly
knuckles braided, the touch of their palms? What
do you do when the lock has been left open?
What do you do when they reach through
the cage? What do you do when
they stare at you straight in
your eyes and cough
in your open
mouth?
ABSTRACT
For the first six months, I was a deferred plane ticket.
Contact comfort is a variable of overwhelming importance
The infant the pastor refused to baptize.
The development of affectional responses
I never sucked my thumb. I pulled out my hair instead.
Emotionality indices such as vocalization, crouching, rocking, and sucking
Call me Rhesus, macaque with mongolian spots.
We can be certain that
I cry with hunger but know the bottle.
Frantic clutching of their bodies was very common
MOTHER OF WOOD
When did you become a house? Hands budding
into ivory doorknobs, your mouth sewn
into the stitching of the couch. One night
I awoke to your fingers slipping needles
in my mouth. My tongue a tangled tapestry
you tried to mend. I never knew you
were such a good seamstress. You hung my body
from the shelf like one of those hard-cheeked dolls
with eyes that blin when you shake them.
When you watched your own mother sweep
stifled suffering under the carpet, did you know
you would raise a home built on the same fears?
On winter nights the house howls, and I wonder
if in sleep your mouth is open, ready to wail.
ABSTRACT
Because my body is a body,
I learn to yield. I collect lemons
from my lemon tree. I bury fish heads
in the garden. I remember the silence
of my childhood. The writhing heat rising
from the grill. The roosters in my backyard
know nothing about dawn.
They crow all night long.
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
Because infants cannot consent
to baptism or transport, the pastor’s concerns
seemed reasonable.
THE CONDITIONS
That the religious faith of said minor child is unknown
THE REVIEW
That the religious faith of the parents of said child is/are informed and verily believe unknown
THE NAMING
That the religious faith of petitioners is/are Roman Catholic
THE CONSENT
That said minor child has no property or means of support, except that being provided by petitioners
THE RELEASE
That on information and belief said minor child has no general or testamentary guardian
THE ACQUISITION
THE CHRISTENING
/MUN/
Considering how changes influence the earth
is it impossible to reach a newly formed day?
Imagine the light of a new translucency,
new as a natural planet extending beyond its circuitry.
To be a crescent-shaped ornament
dangling from midnight’s velvet coat,
to be a globe-shaped gaslight transmitting
somebody else’s shine,
to be white as the porcelain base
of a fingernail.
The period of imprisonment in any one night
silvers into the sleeping one’s hair.
An aperture at the center of a clock draws
its hands and says,
Sometimes lesser splendor reflects fits of frenzy.
Take this moon-eyed bottle of shine –
remember who owns the night.
THE COURIER
You will settle into your seat
and slacken your jaw. Before long,
your ears will pop as you cradle
your package, holding it
carefully like a Christmas ornament.
You will unwrap her like a tamale,
still warm and steaming.
The lighting on airplanes is never bright enough,
and the cold artificial air will arrive in bursts,
numbing your fingers as they clutch her
oh so tenderly. You will cover her in cloth.
Bind her in layers of pastel pajamas
until all that remains is a bulb-shaped face
encased in a pale blue blanket. Sunrise
will leak through the window,
yellow and low like a lion’s morning growl.
You will touch her face.
She will never open her eyes.
MOTHER OF WIRE
If I had a choice …
mother of wire barbed and wombless my mouth poised to pucker.
I tried my best given the tools I had, you say. Where were you
while I crouched in the corner,
a nest of shadows?
Bring out the hammer, mother.
The statue of the virgin Mary illuminates my nightstand.
I touch-touch-touch kiss her foot
soaked in snake’s blood splattered spots of red acrylic.
In the dictionary of childhood illnesses
I seek symptoms that fit my unraveling
hair falling in clumps on the couch
tiny meticulous hands counting each strand.
Call me Rhesus,
Young and Moonless,
monkey without a cloth
to dust her bo
nes.
‘LOST’ FIRST LANGUAGES LEAVE PERMANENT MARK ON THE BRAIN, NEW STUDY REVEALS
To experience the world muffled
through the wall of skin
is like wearing earmuffs
while deep sea diving.
Cacophony of whalesong
and sunken earthquakes,
tonal pitches seep in.
•
How do I translate
the sound of my mother’s
moaning? It’s a soft wail
I hang on the wall
of my windpipe.
•
They say the circulatory system
is the first to develop
in an embryo.
That the body generates cells
to divide and multiply, to form
a swelling ball.
That your blood weaved and whirled
to become my blood.
Who was the first you told?
•
At week eleven, fingernails begin to appear.
I bet you didn’t know that nails
are made of dead blood cells.
How something could grow inside you
that’s both alive and dead.
•
Once I learned how to talk, I did not
stop. I drew blood and licked my teeth
with language, English spilling down my chin.
Later, I learned how words can wound
without touching, and I tucked myself
in a bed of silence.
PETALS
My mind is a clenched cocoon
A fist of grindstone petals
I was a dancer before I was born
My dreams spun on the loom, stuck in its pedal
If I miss a step, snap and pirouette down the staircase
My feet will wrestle with the vines and the petals
I wish I knew time’s seamstress
Eyelashes descend in petals