today

My writing class has finished and I have walked away from writing as though it never happened.  Strange that.  While in the class I had that haunted life changing feeling that I imagine amongst men at war.  A bonding occurring between myself and those others in the class.  Bonding as the class sucked so much out of me.  I still wish to write.  But now I am in a math class and while my mind refuses to be sucked in and molded by math, I am never the less unable to find time to write.

Lena Baron’s house is clean enough

I just got done reading Lena’s personal blog.  She did a post on dirty houses.  Her point being that we all (or anyone I call a friend) struggle with the way we want our houses and what the reality is.  I really thought about this.  I think sometimes people are amazed when they meet me at the office behind my perfect desk and then meet me at my home.  The filing is all done.  The walls surrounding me are covered in art and eclectic beauty.  And that is who I see myself as, artsy and eclectic and elegant and in control. 

My house is nothing like this.  Does my house then reflect the inner me?  I don’t think so.  I think it is just something that is here and now and out of my control.  I think my home functions and beyond that I have temporarily given up caring.  I know the house is stripped bare of decorations because at first my older son kept batting at them and broke a few of the glasses in the frames.  So I will blame part of it on the kids.  My education is very important to me and between work and husband and children and school – well that doesn’t leave a lot of time to do all those artful improvements I had in mind now does it.  Hand painted murals take a lot of time.  And poverty.  I know we have been too close to the poverty line for too many years.  The only way I know how to deal with that is to close my eyes to it.  If I cannot afford to put down new flooring, I will stop noticing it.  I will race across it in the lead, dribbling a jr. pee-wee size basketball as my son tries his best to steal it. 

What do I want out of my house?  I want it to be peaceful.  I want us to feel at ease and protected from the world.  I want to feel relaxed.  I want to feel in control of the house and that the house is not in control of me.  I want to be able to find whatever I need at a moments notice.  To that end, I think I am right where I want to be.  The dishes are always clean and washed and if you can’t find socks you might try looking on the dining room table.  Again, I just don’t care.  If I lived in a perfect home, I would be like the fat woman who is given a second chance and is re-incarnated into the body of a thin woman – how long do you think it will take her to fill out her new form? 

This is my house now.  It is a reflection of who I am now.  I am a woman who works too many hours, who tries to answer all her calls, who wants an education, who makes sure to read to her children each day and hold them tight, a woman who doesn’t want to forget the great love she has for her husband and who needs just enough cleanliness to be able to find everything at a moment’s notice.  This is who we are now.  I won’t always be in school.  My son’s won’t always be leaping off the couches.  The socks won’t always be on the table. 

So if you are thinking about coming to visit, bring your tennies.  The hardwood floors are great for basketball.

Flashback

She spent her days in the air conditioned classroom, the hum of the machine strong and steady like the hum of the children’s voices non-stop.  She exited the school and slid into the leather seat of her car, her finger pressing the blue button a few times although the air conditioner had always been left on at the coolest setting.  Arriving at home she darted from the car to the house, no longer noticing the constant minute vibration of the giant air conditioner and the white noise of moving air.  She lived constantly insulated from what was going on all around her.  Now in the car with the window rolled down, she wondered how many other ways she might be cut off from the real world.  Yesterday she had left the school and slid onto the leather seat of her car but she had not headed home.  Instead she had left the edges of her small town and headed out toward the fields where the migrant workers lived, the part of town the locals laughingly called Tortilla Flats.

On the drive to Flor’s house Mary automatically flipped the window shade to block out the sun driving into her eyes; it was four o’clock and the sun set at just the angle to make driving difficult.  She sat ridiculously erect trying to block the sun out, leaving a narrow band of vision below the visor.  She pushed the blue button on the air conditioner but it was already as cold as it would go.  She shifted uncomfortably on the black leather seat, sweat beading at the small of her back.  God she hated the summer and still didn’t know why she lived here.  “To make a difference” she told herself.  She wondered what she could possibly do to help the child. 

When school started in late July, Flor Magallanes Sauceda had begun attending like all the other students and thinking back, Mary could not remember thinking she had differed in any specific way.  She had large brown eyes, two long, dark braids, and dark, ashy skin.  Like most of the immigrant children she spoke no English and that initially was no cause for concern.  Over the past month, the Mexican children had started to lose the look of so many frightened rabbits, but not Flor.  Flor hung back.  She stayed at her desk when the others rose to run outside.  When pushed to go outside she stood dutifully where placed outside the ring of children.  She stood but did not look at the others.  Instead, she stared at her hands and wound a faded and grimy strip of calico around and around her fingers.  The children had begun to taunt her, calling her Floor.  Even the other Mexican children called her “Floor”, laughing although they didn’t understand the play of words.  But Flor did not react. 

Yesterday, Mary had watched Flor routinely be led to the edge of the group of children, had watched Flor blocking out the world, twisting and turning the length of cloth around her fingers.  Perhaps the child was autistic or otherwise impaired?  Something would have to be done.  The parents had never come to the school, but that was no surprise.  The Mexican’s typically gave the school a wide berth.  She would have to make a home visit.  As the school’s only Spanish speaking teacher, the responsibility of contacting the family would be left to her.  She laughed inwardly, thinking of her college Spanish and how lacking it had proven to be.  Mary walked to Flor and lowering herself to the child’s level, she upturned Flor’s face to her own.  The little girl flinched and struggled to maintain her averted gaze but did not pull away.  Her hands concentrated on twisting the the narrow length of cloth ’round her fingers.  Too tight, the fabric bound the fingers, little fingers turning darker and darker.  Mary did not pull Flor’s precious strip of cloth away but rather, dropped her hand from Flor’s face, stood up, and stepped back and away.  Flor

Big Breakfast

Today is Sunday and Sunday means Big Breakfast.

Four burners of open flame going non-stop.

Cocoa powder, sugar, vainilla, cinnamon and milk frothing under the molinillo.

Cheap yellow onions and jalapeños crackle and spit in sizzling oil.

Yesterday’s beans follow and a melee of sound and aroma ensue.

Frying chiles green and acrid in the air.

I subdue them with the bean masher.

In the sarten I fry perfect eggs,

 completely cooked white but the yoke a golden liquid sun.

Corn tortillas left to crisp, smoking, bursting into flame.

We tear off blackened tortilla triangles and scoop up eggs and beans.

We chew with relish, cinder bits of tortilla disintegrating on the tongue.

Cinnamony chocolate in heavy clay mugs I made

of clay dug from a Mexican river bank.

And my smallest son, who must always be different

Eating sardinas en tomate directly from the tin.

I allow it because at Big Breakfast, everyone should be happy.

White and yellow eggs, earthen-brown beans, pale tortillas with blackened spots

Persimmon colored plates on a cerulean blue table,

Three brown faces to my own pink.

Gathered around the table in California, we call my mother

A world away in Oregon.

Yes they are having big breakfast at the long, scarred oak table of my youth.

my brothers and sister and all their blonde and blue eyed progeny

waffles with huckleberry syrup, bacon and eggs and Jimmy Dean sausage.

I remember those breakfasts, one day a week of familial bliss.

And I am happy I have brought this tradition to my family,

This tradition with a twist.

Joey

Joey

 

 

He is constantly busy but

In the afternoons we come together

Here in this little room

With the curtains drawn.

He is not my lover but we lay

bodies entwined

on the long, narrow twin bed.

I nuzzle his earlobes and he strokes my throat, my breast, the fat of my belly.

He positions me and nudges me into the shape he wishes,

then flings an arm around me in jealous ownership.

I enclose his hand in mine, his nails black and feral.

But he shakes my hand off, positioning it

where he, the dominant one, wants it.

When I think our bodies are close, close, closer-than-possible,

closer than the coitus that brought him into being,

he continues to insinuate his body into mine.

His hair tickles my lips and I smell his souring sweat,

my fingertips travail his scabbed and scarred knees.

 I remember his infantile breath, sweetened by

breast milk, no more.

He has crawled out of my private parts

like a hairless kangaroo traveling blindly

up to the nipple and pouched

in my arms, no longer.

At nap time alone, he searches

Through his jeans pocket where he keeps relics of importance:

pebbles and rubber bands and bits of feathers and

selects the umbilical cord,

And connects us again,

If only for an hour or two.

angry sun

Mira mama, alli esta el sol                 Look mama, there is the sun

El se levanta por la manana              He gets up in the morning

Y yo me despierto                                 And I wake up

y estiro los huesos                                I stretch my bones

A veces el sol esta muy enojado y brilla demasiado          sometimes the sun is very angry and shines too much

y se mete en mis ojos                         and gets in my eyes

pero yo lo saco de mi con un destornudo        but I get him out with a sneeze

Por la tarde esta muy, muy arriba                       in the afternoon he is very, very high

directamente arriba de mi casa                            right above my house

asi yo se que es la hora de acostarme                 this is how I know it is time to lie down

en mi cuarto yo cierro las cortinas                     in my room I close the curtains

y me escondo abajo de la cobija                           and I hide myself under the blanket

Alli el no me puede ver                                           he cannot see me there

cuando despierto, el se ha movido.                  when I wake he has moved

Es la hora de jugo y jugar                                      It is time for juice and play

y tu vas cocinar para mi                                       and you will cook for me

frijoles y huevos y tortilla                                    beans and eggs and tortilla

y jugo purple!                                                            and purple juice

El sol esta bajandose                                               the sun is setting

el pelea con la luna pero el sol esta cansado       he fights with the moon but he is tired

estaba muy enojado todo el dia                                he was angry all day long

y ahora debe dormirse                                                  and now he should sleep

La luna se levanta                                                            the moon rises up

Yo me acuesto en mi cuarto                                        I lay down in my room

con la cortina abierta                                                     with the curtain open

la luna no me lastima por nada                                   the moon wouldn’t hurt me for anything

me quiere mucho                                                              it loves me a lot

y yo te beso mama                                                            and I kiss you mama

porque yo te quiero a ti                                                 because I love you a lot

This is not exactly a poem but this is the way my son explained the sun to me.  I thought it very interesting that he sees the sun as so very angry, shining angrily, following him, standing above our house to tell him it is time for nap, the sun having an angry day and fighting with the moon at night before going to sleep.  He sees the moon as benevolent and loving.  He opens his curtain to it but blocks out the sun (which here in the desert I will admit – we do).  Just very interesting his perspective on the sun, its function, its mood.

Barro

My poems are lopsided pots.

My stories are misshapen

mugs whose handles won’t attach

I roll out coils of words and

Placing them concentrically I form a base

Round and round my ideas go.

They are made of a universal and base thing

A thing that rises up and fills your nostrils like wet

Earth from which we all come

Which is why you will recognize yourself in it

I score sentences and link them together

I pinch off colors and textures, flavors and sensation,

wet and soft and malleable between my fingers

and form them and add them here and there to fill out the shape

I scrape away overly groggy bits heavy words like groggy bits

And with my nail or shards of thoughts -Need to work on this part

I scrape down the words to their essence and compact them

They will be layered like platelets clinging to one another

No air bubbles of wasted space between.

But my words disappoint

They are too wet and sink and sag after I have added them

The story is too dry and refuses new material

I will shroud my thoughts in cloths dampened with

Tears, My tears

My tears will penetrate as I put the work aside

And let it set, ruminate, vegetate, postulate

And I will bring it out again

It is now either the lopsided pot it always was or

A container of promise

I will smooth it and adjust it and add a flourish

I will turn it this way and that and admire its perfection

And grieve its faults

And I will put it under the fire of your gaze

The ultimate test of cohesion and color choice

It will either shatter violently

Or fit your hand

like the missing piece of earth from which you came

and which your body recognizes as its own.

tortillas

Estoy comiendo tortillas.

Tortillas blancas, tortillas frescas,

recien hechas y calientitas.

suave y caliente como la carne de una mujer.

Con pecas, Como me gustan las pecas

manchas quemadas de otra textura,

cenizas de sabor.

Arranco un pedacito

y la meto directo en la mantequilla.

asi de rapido la levanto a mi boca

y mastico, la gota amarilla en mi barbilla

puntos de negro dejado en la mantequilla

un polvo de harina bajo las unas

sonrio la felicidad de ser vivo.

I am eating tortillas as I write this.  I can hardly write for it means I must lower the tortilla and butter.  Fresh tortillas are what I think of when I read biblical accounts of mana from heaven.  Yes, yes I know they were flaky and white and had a sweet flavor, but for me, I will always substitute my own version of what heaven’s food must have been. 

Spanish, that great love of mine, it is like a pair of shackles.  My skill level is so low it leaves me frustrated.  When will I know all the words?  Well never of course but when will it flow like rainbow paint from my mouth in exactly the shade and texture I want to express?

just words

Words pour from my fingertips,

sprout wings or legs and away they go.

They escape the meaning my mind would give.

They flit they fly they flow.

Raise your hands and help me friend,

Let us wrestle them to the ground.

There I will pack them with feelings and colors,

emotions and sights and sounds.

And together we will toss them back and forth

And squeeze their richness out.

And we’ll loll in kaleidoscope significance

Precious words that whisper and shout.

unveiling me

I have chosen humility as my cloak.

I have chosen to cover myself up in theatrical effacement

And my silver words and clever, downcast lashes

are an artfully constructed double veiling.

Glimmer of talent beckons;

A chasm of venom and anger boil behind my lips.