Month: September 2011

September (2011) Daughters

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Mythili

you are still my little girl
though you try to pop out
adult (somewhat crooked) teeth
and blend Spanish and English
easily into your imaginary life

among friends you are a leader
(no tag-along little sister role)
and you wait
so anxiously wait
until you are big enough to ride
Isabella’s bike,
to read Isabella’s stories,
to find the right way to
wake up on early school mornings

in our troop,
you are Magical Mythili,
the perfect name
for the creative artist
born from the
destined-to-be-crone
little baby whose head
turned to see me walk
into the room
forty-eight hours
after birth.

Isabella

all of a sudden
you have decided
that you’re a reader

it is a simple statement,
one you would wash off your back
like the layers of shampoo
you push aside

but to me
watching you read
Laura Ingalls Wilder
just like i used to

it means more than
the thousands of words
filling your brain,
making you mine

Riona

every day a new song
a new dance
a new Spanish phrase
a new smile
from my newly school-aged girl

i was worried.
you know that
or you don’t.
you’re small.
tire easily.
timid.
dependent.

oh so calm and pleasant
the perfect student
who hugs goodbye
a friend
whose name you won’t mention
who shies away from
the video of your
performance at the assembly
who is everything
and more
than i could ever
ask you to be.

System

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Dear System:

You are broken.
Some say beyond repair.
You let them fall into
cracks so wide they
can be seen from airplanes.
You ignore the best and brightest
to honor those who
slip easily into nonchalance.

You offer little.
You take more than we can give.
You let the parents
command the details of our profession
as if they’re our salvation.
You forget the long hours,
heavy with lack of sleep,
sick with worry like mothers
of all our lost children.

Yet we trust you.
We need your broken-down support.
Without you we wouldn’t be here
to hold their hands,
to guide them through addition,
subtraction, how to think, see, be.
So we must be grateful.
We must offer our gratitude
to the cracks, the nonchalance,
the helicopter parents.

What we cannot do.
What I cannot do
is allow you to beat down
the ones who love them best
the ones who trust you most
the ones who are our best and brightest
the ones I hope someday
you will repair yourself enough to see.

Película

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i send my camera
zoomed in and out
around our table of twelve
their words slip
like bubbles from their tongues
escaping into the heat
popping before i can catch them

drinks go to lips
songs emerge as naturally
as water flowing from the mountains
they have no idea
they are being filmed

sleep pushes at my eyelids
as the Taiwanese pasta
settles in my belly
but i could stay here forever
listening to the language
i crave to understand
immersing myself in the people
whose home i’ll never know

it is like a dream really
and i pinch myself awake
so full of life
they are so full of life
that no language
could define
just what my video
will never capture

Unequivocal

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what amazes me most
is the unequivocal love
that i could never
(digging deep into my soul
tearing out my heartstrings
ripping apart my internal organs)
be able to replenish or replace

i could not even touch on
the amount of love
trapped within the lips
he presses against my cheek
let alone the endless ocean
buried hollowly in his chest
whose waves knock me to the shore
all breath lost to the salt.

Dose

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i will take a dose
of your subliminal message
swallow it whole
hide it behind my eyes
and blink back your question

you will taste soon enough
the answer that you seek
though your message is clear
and easy to digest

perhaps you can take a dose
of the medicine you offer
place it on your tongue
and grin, knowing how sweetly
it settles into your belly

Apology

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please forgive me
i have sent the emails
that will annoy you
and make you want to hit delete

we need money
for our winter camp
our school’s plants
and everything that will
put smiles on little girls’ faces

To-Do List

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email daughter’s teacher
who doesn’t know how to read
pick up nuts
because i’m going crazy
learn Castilian Spanish
so i can speak to roommates
intervene in group work
for groups who won’t work
teach daughter to read
because schools don’t work
sit in meetings that don’t apply to me
so i can’t do my work
ride my bike to work
so i can see the moonset/sunrise
try to remember
that i cannot
make a list
that will quite
change the way the world works

Journal: September 11, 2001

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Dear Brittany, Tuesday, September 11, 2001 8:30 p.m.

I just keep hearing it. A line from a movie? A speech from a long-dead political leader? Or a description, so precise, so harsh, so true of this very day in the history of the world.

“A day that will live in infamy.”

I don’t even know where to begin. Should I repeat, in this journal, the story that I’ve heard from 20 journalists, seen video and photos of over 100 times, repeated in over 100 ways? Or, when I look back at this entry years from now, perhaps as a mother, a grandmother, a dying old woman, will the date alone strike a chord and bring back the terror of this day?

Will I be able to look back, many years from now, or will this journal be ashes in the rubble remaining from days of nuclear warfare?

I face the same questions as everyone else; the questions I ask my students to answer every time they read a story or write a paper: Who? What? Where? When?

WHY?

HOW?

Are these the keys to good writing, or unanswerable interrogations about our country, our world, our humanity?

No, I cannot answer today; maybe not ever. I stare blankly at the muted screen, its words that so quickly skid across the bottom, blurry to my tired eyes. I can’t listen anymore. I look at the seriousness of the journalists’ faces, the grave, reserved anxiety, unable to keep my thoughts on track. What track? Where am I going? Where are we going? The questions again, endless, like the questions you ask yourself when you’re reading a great story.

Only, this isn’t a story.

–KMV

Measurement

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the space between
when that light counts down
and how sore my muscles will be
is immeasurable

but i can measure the speed
of my tires through
the intersection
a dream in the making

i beat the limit
and make it in time
to hear thrilled immeasurable
screams of my beauties

With Perfect Fluency

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you cannot speak
with perfect fluency
the language
that i need you to know.

the meanings
that hide like
costumed schoolgirls
behind curtains

the nuances
of masked words
that shadow the pain
behind your absence.

the many ways
we say i love you
that with your foreign ears
you seem unable to hear.

you cannot listen
with perfect fluency
to silence between the words
of the language
that i need you to know.