by Tiana Nobile
The past is a shoelace
Caught on bicycle chains and pedals
I ran along the railroad looking for you
My mouth stale with wine and burnt petals
In the morning, you, Moon, will be someone else
Daughter of a million buried petals
FATHER, HARRY (HOLY MAKER)
forgets his voice
alone in the office torpid hum fluorescent light
the science of love intent on ruin
when he lost his second wife to cancer
they laid him on the table
father rhesus electrode temples
brain full of static body convulsing
his love & its meditations
father of wire of cloth of macaque
sits at his desk
rocks back and forth
reaches
tremors in his hands
clutching at more than a straw
UNDERWATER FALSETTO
for Muriel
How many tongues does it take to slice a heart?
Your mouth spills over your mouth.
A cage breaks apart. I watch
as you hold a moon
in your lips and feel the wind
of a wing take off from your tongue.
You paint yourself with blood
and wrap the night
around your shoulders. Or is the night
cradling you in its leather purse?
Some say to close your eyes. I say look
the ocean straight in its blue
and bulging face.
Water will flood through all your fissures.
You carry a heart in your pocket.
You wonder how long before it breaks.
/'MəŋKI/
Does an animal belong to its tail,
or does a tail belong to its animal?
In what trees do they live?
In countries old or new?
What worlds do they hold
tucked in their cheek-pouches?
I have a flat nose, a sideways face.
Where the new world meets the old,
my nostrils point downward,
summon the breath of
capuchin, howler, moustache, proboscis,
rhesus, squirrel, spider, vervet.
We dress ourselves in furs.
Images of our likeness are carved into tree bark
with paws over our mouths,
paws over our eyes,
paws over our ears.
A foggy image begins to form in my third eye:
an organ-grinder cranks a barrel
with giant wooly hands.
It is late.
What is broken finds its way back to itself.
Like a soldering flux, we cleave.
PERSONAL FICTION
Years later, I will tell you I remember the town made of wood, quilted houses with slanted rooftops. I will tell you I remember the hospital, the room where I curled like a bloodless earthworm looking for dirt, the smell of morning nesting in the window, night falling purple on the floor. You will believe me and be jealous. I will cling to this envy, covet it, keep it in a locket that hangs around my neck. I will tell you these things even if they aren’t true. I will convince myself late into the night until I feel the grass grazing my toes, the sun’s heat on my back.
HARLOW’S MONKEY
We learned to give ourselves away
early on. We used to hide the bruises,
used to scratch our arms until they bled,
until our body was a weeping wound.
The cage exists only in our mind.
Kick down the door. Matchstick.
Whether of wire or terrycloth, we all burn
the same. We gasp for air and taste the bitter juice
of roses, petals dried and clipped
to the pages of our chest.
At the feet of our gods, we pile our bones,
muscles threaded to flesh. The fresh liquor
of unchained thought burning the roof of our mouths,
we take back our tongues, drink handfuls of water.
In what shallow grave will we bury the words
we killed? Eomeoni. Abeoji. Daejeon.
Moon Yeong Shin. We deliver them
to the dirtmother and her family of worms.
The past mushrooms and burns
in atomic flush. We sling a new sun
from the pit of our stomachs
and raise our wooly hands, fingers clenched.
REVISIONIST HISTORY
The weather in Seoul in October is bright and balmy.
All the hospital beds are full, and women with thick arms
and bent knees, feet in the stirrups, scream in an echoing
symphony. A woman with small ankles can’t see
beyond her bloated stomach. She keeps her eyes shut
as forceps dig, doctors’ hands twisting between her legs
like a corkscrew pulling out the plug.
It’s been a busy morning, and between heaving breaths
she wonders how much longer? First the head,
then the shriveled body, bright as a small sun.
For the first time in her life she sighs and means it.
That’s how it happens in my fantasy, the movie I watch
on repeat, re-imagined myth of my birth. No. I emerged
from seafoam flapping my tailfins in the Pacific froth.
I washed ashore encased in a mermaid purse, crawled on all fours,
and learned the power of breath. No. I was stardust,
an accumulation of space matter falling to earth in tiny pieces.
I’m still gathering my limbs. They’re scattered all over the planet.
None of that is true. I was born in the airport, propelled
through the gaping mouth of sliding glass doors.
My father’s second cousin ferried me down the stairs,
my mouth bubbling with Korean consonants, eyes still wary
of sight. In the video recording of my arrival, the airport light
burns everything so yellow it’s purple. My grandfather’s cheeks
behind his glasses glow like round speckled eggs. I’ve watched
the video so many times it’s etched like a scar. I can feel
my mother’s yellow tears fall purple on my cheek. My father
tucks his upper lip inside his tongue. Years later, I will learn
why he does this: searching for words when the mouth is lacking,
soft tears cradled in the pockets of his open eyes. What’s
the difference between memory told and memory burned?
I was born in the womb of a stranger, my face a reflection
of somebody else’s shadow. If I told you that I missed you,
would you believe me? Would I?
NOTES
“/'məTHər/,” “/'mīgrənt/,” “/mun/,” and “/'məŋki/” incorporate text from the Oxford English Dictionary entries on “mother,” “migrant,” “moon,” and “monkey.”
Harry Harlow was an American psychologist known for his experiments on the impact of maternal deprivation and contact comfort on children’s psychological, social, and emotional development. He was one of the first psychologists to explore the “science” of love, and one of his most famous and controversial experiments included separating newborn rhesus monkeys from their mothers and providing them with various inanimate surrogates. Though these studies provided us with important insight into the relationship between caregivers and children, his experiments are believed to have been, in part, the motivation for the creation of laws for the ethical treatment of laboratory animals. The poem “Abstract” (page 37) borrows language from Harlow’s research paper, “The Nature of Love.”
“The Stolen Generation” features an erasure of the Aboriginal Protection Act of 1869 and the Aborigines Protection Act of 1886. It also uses a quote from the article, “Stolen generation
payout” published by The Age on August 2, 2007.
“The Last Straw” borrows language from the article “US woman put adopted Russian son on one-way flight alone back to homeland” published by the NY Post on April 9, 2010. The article tells the story of Artyom Savelyev, who was adopted from Russia and subsequently relinquished when he was seven years old. This case was considered “the last straw” in a series of tragedies related to Russian/US adoptions and resulted in a temporary freeze on Russian adoptions to the United States.
“‘Lost’ first languages leave permanent mark on the brain, new study reveals” is the title of an article that appeared in The Guardian on November 20, 2014.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to the editors of the following publications in which these poems, in some form, first appeared:
The Collagist: “The Night I Dreamed of Water”
Antenna::Signals: “Moon Yeong Shin” and “Child’s Pre-Flight Report”
TENDE RLOIN: “Where are you really from?” and “Abstract” (p. 35 and p. 39)
The Spirit of the Staircase chapbook published by Antenna :: Press Street Press: “Where are you really from?” and “Abstract” (p. 35 and p. 39)
Apogee: “Revisionist History”
Hyphen Magazine: “‘Lost’ first languages leave permanent mark on the brain, new study reveals”
Texas Review: “What orchard are you from?” and “Petals”
The New Republic: “/'mīgrənt/”
The Indianapolis Review: “Mother of Rock” and “Mother of Cloth”
Guernica: “/'məTHər/”
Kweli Journal: “Operation Babylift”
Georgia Review: “Underwater Falsetto”
SWWIM: “Did you know”
Plume: “St. Rose of Lima”
Pleaides: “To Whom It May Concern:”
Poetry Northwest: “Harlow’s Monkey”
I wouldn’t be the writer I am today without Kundiman, a community that has bolstered, fed, and soothed me over and over throughout the years. I’m especially grateful to Kundiman’s co-founders, Sarah Gambito and Joseph Legaspi, for creating a space that filled a hole in my heart I didn’t know I had.
A bouquet of gratitude for my teachers and mentors, who believed in my work even when I didn’t and who modeled for me what it means to be a poet: Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Jennifer Chang, Suzanne Gardinier, Cathy Park Hong, A. Van Jordan, Jeffrey McDaniel, and Heather McHugh. Additional blossoms of appreciation for Debra Allbery, Director of the MFA Program at Warren Wilson College, whose opening lecture at my first residency inspired the title of this collection, and Paul Otremba, who taught me the careful art of putting a book together and whose spirit lives on in these pages. You’re deeply missed.
I’m so grateful for friends who provided inspiration and vital feedback as I pushed these poems forward: Tamiko Beyer, Cathy Linh Che, Dan Lau, Muriel Leung, Leigh Lucas, Tariq Luthun, Trish Marshall, Soham Patel, and Nomi Stone. Special thanks to Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello for her support in the ordering of this manuscript; your poetic sensibilities and attention to detail are impressive and hugely appreciated!
Thank you to Hub City Press for taking a chance on my book, especially Kate McMullen for her amazing work on the design and my brilliant editor, Leslie Sainz. Thank you both for your collaboration and for helping me bring this vision to life.
I owe a debt of gratitude to the Rona Jaffe Foundation whose financial support made my first trip back to Korea possible, and to JaeRan Kim, whose blog, “Harlow’s Monkey: An Unapologetic Look at Transracial and Transnational Adoption,” introduced me to the psychologist Harry Harlow and his research. Discovering this blog set me on a path to understand the relationship between adoption and attachment theory and sparked the writing of many of the poems that appear in this book. Additional thanks to Deborah Blum, author of Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection, an informative biography on Harlow that helped me understand the man behind the experiments.
Hat tips to Nay Saysourinho, who introduced me to Eden Some’s artwork; Eden Some for granting us permission to use his beautiful ink wash painting for the cover; and Rowan Ricardo Phillips who, during a workshop at Warren Wilson, suggested I re-visit William Blake’s “Infant Sorrow”, which enabled me to find the perfect epigraph to open this collection.
Thank you to my family for loving me and teaching me the joy of reading. Thank you for supporting my curiosity and creativity and for never denying me books and my favorite felt tip pens.
In Beloved, Toni Morrison writes, “She is a friend of mine. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.” To all the beloved people who have gathered me and held me close over the years: my New Orleans community, SLC & Joshua Tree fam, the funky coterie, krewe of wingnuts, fellow wallies, KID smART birds, Argentina squad, teacher comrades, and especially Nikita, my sister-star, Stephanie, my chosen family, and Ross, my love—thank you for the joy and the laughter.
When I started writing these poems, I felt very alone in my journey as an Asian American adoptee writer. Since then, I’ve met some wonderful people who shared an understanding of the adoptee experience and a passion for poetry. Their friendship, care, insight, and compassion have meant the world to me. To my adoptee poet sisters, Sarah Audsley, Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Ansley Moon, and Leah Silvieus: this book is for you.
Tiana Nobile is a Korean American adoptee, Kundiman fellow, and recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award. A finalist of the National Poetry Series and Kundiman Poetry Prize, she is the author of the chapbook, The Spirit of the Staircase (2017). Her writing has appeared in Poetry Northwest, The New Republic, Guernica, and the Texas Review, among others. Tiana received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College, MAT in Elementary and Special Education from the University of New Orleans, and MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College. She lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. For more, visit www.tiananobile.com.
Founded in Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1995, Hub City Press has emerged as the South’s premier independent literary press. Focused on finding and spotlighting extraordinary new and unsung writers from the American South, our curated list champions diverse authors and books that don’t fit into the commercial publishing landscape. The press has published over ninety high-caliber literary works, including novels, short stories, poetry, memoir, and books emphasizing the region’s culture and history. Hub City is interested in books with a strong sense of place and is committed to introducing a roster of lesser-heard Southern voices.
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