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Oceanic. Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Читать онлайн.Название Oceanic
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781619321762
Автор произведения Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Жанр Зарубежные стихи
Издательство Ingram
44 The Body
46 One-Star Reviews of the Taj Mahal
47 First Time on the Funicular
48 One-Star Reviews of the Great Wall of China
52 Chess
53 My South
54 Bengal Tiger
OCEANIC
Self-Portrait as Scallop
When I Am Six
CHICAGO
My mother waters the tomato & pepper plants. I steal drinks from the penny-taste of the garden hose. It is my favorite drink. I am six & think to cross the street by myself from time to time, but never do. I am six, my sister is five, & we hide inside clothing racks at the store just to feel the black-sick fill our round bellies when we get lost, lost, lost from our mother. I am six & I am laughing with a mouthful of cashews. I think nuts is the funniest word I have ever heard. I am six & I break all my mother’s lipsticks & glue them together & put them back in her bathroom drawer. She’ll never notice. Sometimes I find sad envelopes, the ones with red and blue stripes, meaning these envelopes fly, meaning thin feathers, meaning bird with a little worm in the beak. Envelopes from her father, I think—she snatches them from my hand & says, No, no, where did you get these? Now put them back.
On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance
Breathe deep even if it means you wrinkle
your nose from the fake-lemon antiseptic
of the mopped floors and wiped-down
doorknobs. The freshly soaped necks
and armpits. Your teacher means well,
even if he butchers your name like
he has a bloody sausage casing stuck
between his teeth, handprints
on his white, sloppy apron. And when
everyone turns around to check out
your face, no need to flush red and warm.
Just picture all the eyes as if your classroom
is one big scallop with its dozens of icy blues
and you will remember that winter your family
took you to the China Sea and you sank
your face in it to gaze at baby clams and sea stars
the size of your outstretched hand. And when
all those necks start to crane, try not to forget
someone once lathered their bodies, once patted them
dry with a fluffy towel after a bath, set out their clothes
for the first day of school. Think of their pencil cases
from third grade, full of sharp pencils, a pink pearl eraser.
Think of their handheld pencil sharpener and its tiny blade.
The Origin of Feathers on My Windshield
The pelicans dip their brilliant sloppy bills
into their tired shoulders and there is a certain bridge
in Florida where you have to be careful not to hit them
as they fly across windshields. I lost the only picture
of me taken by a man who used to be the boy I loved
when I was fifteen. When this man last visited me,
all the pretty rivers in town were tannin-stained
from a certain oak-and-chestnut mess. We walked
carefully through glass galleries and a little bakery
that sold a single gold-dipped strawberry. I was the girl
whose hands gave up chewing through a dahlia long ago.
Even he has crawled too far across soil to turn back now.
And truth be told, so have I. I am like a man who prefers
the taste of his own tongue instead of the lips of summer.
My shadow and the shadow of sunflowers are the same.
Sea Church
Give me a church
made entirely of salt.
Let the walls hiss
and smoke when
I return to shore.
I ask for the grace
of a new freckle
on my cheek, the lift
of blue and my mother’s
soapy skin to greet me.
Hide me in a room
with no windows.
Never let me see
the dolphins leaping
into commas
for this waterprayer
rising like a host
of paper lanterns
in the inky evening.
Let them hang
in