The Plants We Grew

Having talked back and forth, several times,
About what would constitute a memorable anniversary gift
We decided, on a whim, not shortlisted
On the list of items with adequate significance, to buy,
As compromise, plants for our adjoining terrace.

Not the potted kind,
I had said to you a dozen times, explaining
I have issues of detachment with sprouts
Whose milestones I have missed;
The very first stalk, translucent green,
Slender, delicate, wobbly bent,
The two leaves, following –
Held in a V, like birds frozen in flight,
Or spindly arms outstretched, grabbing
From beyond the open window, solar leftovers;
What I refer to, casually, as
Ozone’s armed fugitives.

Two leaves in the inner whorl,

Resting on a peduncle, noodle-shaped,
Turning four, then eight, then sixteen, so on –
Seeing, beyond my eyes, limbs take shape,
A nose formulate, pigments distend like open doors,
Tapering waists, dark green nipples, and roots
Under the elevated earth, grow muscular and strong.
They are closer to me than my own,
Babies, we have grown
From scratch, from life suspended in shells
Sold in paper packets, by the pound.

The established ones, in blossom,

Beautiful­ –yes, but estranged in the way
Of adopted children. We uncoil our destinies,
Shovel in additives, and recoil with ligature,
Trying so hard to internalize a borrowed genealogy.

The essential sentiment here is

From scratch, experiencing myself
The processes of gestation, birthing, labor, delivery,
A readied mother, me.
And then, watching under Nature’s magnification, the steps
From a single cell grow into a mature organism;
One with a vision, itself amorous,
Bearing fruit, little progenies that would diversify
Our sensitive racial relapse. Grow into flowers,
Form petals like sleeves, bells, boneless trumpets,
And burst into pollen, fleeting vectors
Of invisible off-springs, children’s inaudible cries
That would further turn the wheel of life,
One more maneuver, then two, then three,
Into a perpetuation, into infinity.

You had argued, then, the idea of convenience.

Some plants, you had said, are just too hard to grow,
Take too much time, are such a bother
To set just right. You were uneasy with effort.
The raising of our children, needing to be
Quick, measured, occasional.
So we struck a balance; some plants, we decided,
We would build from scratch –the daisies, forget-me-nots, bachelor’s buttons,
Others we would borrow and adopt as our own.

And so we did. And I fell in love
With you, and our babies, all over again.
Watching, within the planters, the judgment
Of Nature’s court; struggling for existence,
The fittest, surviving. And the dead ones,
We lifted, from their cushion-less beds,
Kissed their lids of permanent dreams,
Spoke in rhyme of the joy they brought,
And buried them back into the Earth.

New York to San Fran

My air route to San Fran –
A flight, akin
To tight rope walking;
Between cities, pegged
On opposite coasts.

New York looks like a silver necklace
Under a wrinkled scarf of clouds.   

I sit in the belly of the whistling jet,

Counting on one hand, arcs
On the ceiling above me, like metallic ribs
Un-caged, cornflower blue mixed indigo.  

And a few inches further up,  

The cabin skin
Grows blisters
From the troposphere’s unconscionable beatings.   

A pocket-sized TV screen
Traces out my route.
I take notes of city names –
Druid Hills, Lancaster, Fredonia, Westfield.
San Francisco comes, eventually.  

The moon, above my dimpled shoulder,

Sparkly white, polished, looks
No wider than
A grain of rice.

To my right, I notice,

A handful of clouds
Bursting into water.  

Underneath the aircraft’s

Bent abdomen, legs folded
Into dark pouches,
Towns emerge, shaped
Like mutant rhomboids –
A beauty pageant: ten,
Fifteen minutes under the limelight
Before vanishing into darkness.

Three hours in,

I drink coffee and spend
A few minutes untangling
Headphones; knotted
Like red shoe laces.

Orange sodium lamps

At a distance, mark borders
Of habitation.
I see, light
Beyond my window screen
Thickening like gravy.
The sky changing clothes –
For somber rejoice.

The attendant announces

We are now
Over Wyoming.
Yellowstone –I say Hello to you, and wave at you
As if you were a rookery
Of innocent school children.

I don’t know what to think anymore.
My mind is out of choices.   

I play Chopin on my iPod,

But the violin mutes.
Sounds get caught in traffic burbles.

The moon, I suddenly realize,

Has sprinted ahead.

The cabin fills up with wheezes

Of the engine’s dramatic hyperventilation;
Its lungs puff up with smoke and vapor.
India,
Comes to mind,
And mulberries.

Drowsy at 11 pm –

Our pilot finally announces
Preparation for descent.
Trays are to be stowed, trash
Emptied out of bowls, seats
Returned to a strict perpendicular.

Perhaps it is time to leave the comfort
Of 30,000 feet above ground –
The quiet company of stars, the foaming clouds,
Stillness of the meditative mind.

Beyond my window, I can almost see

The Pacific’s knobby knuckles.
Feel on my eyes, its citrus breath.

And then the jet spikes

Into an abrupt seizure.
We pray with audible gulps, the lady
To my right, in a bright teal sari
Clutches tightly onto her light-brown rosary.

The first drop, and to my left

San Francisco is waiting.

I smile out wide;

My lip edges curl like tendrils on a trellis.
Excited, even –my dark epidermis.

The second drop, and my belly caves:

That sudden emptiness from gravity’s displacement.
We move closer and closer to the manicured strip
Of pastel phosphorescence –guide lights
Blinking, yawning, chewing.

And we hit the ground with a thud, the final landing.

In San Francisco, at last, I breathe fast –
My heart folds like a careful kerchief.  
Engines pirouette at monumental speeds; their tutus
Swirl, pivot, riot, spin.  
A moaning of wings, follow
Thunderous cackles of metal windbreakers.
The leg wheels sizzle, trachea distends; balls
Of air pulse out.

We taxi to the gate. The crowd

Resumes its usual clamor. Cell phones
Choke from the unbearable weight
Of muted text messages.

I am giddy with happiness.

Overcome, with this feeling of
I made it here,
Finally.

At last, the time comes to leave the plane.

I spill onto a dream.    

Barber Shop

In the surroundings of the unaccustomed barber shop,
I am, as if, an interruption
to the twin mirrors lost in chatter
perched, equidistant -
Hooks on their shoulders,
formless faces of deflective silver, accommodating
every stroke of physical detail
since their unremarkable installations.
 
The room, devoid of customers,
fills up, easily, with a crowd of me -
Reflections, like organic clones, 
forming family so astonishingly similar
that I lose myself in the midst 
of half-brothers,
their eyes, round with wonder,
expressions, filled with caution;
curious, shy, uncanny.
 
I notice from my cushioned seat,
Several versions of me-
lips, the color of shy rhododendrons,
bending into infinity, vanishing
beyond the mirror and into the wall
where emotions have no purpose.
Where lineage is a mystery.
 
I sit quietly,
arms folded, 
and listen intently
to the sounds surrounding me.

A radio, near the vaulted ceiling,
sneezes loudly.

Walls, the color of ocean lichen,
hiccup, out of breath.
 
Scissors, with splayed arms,
slice first through air, their metallic blades
giddy with laughter and childish merrymaking,
till they reach my hair,
and chomp off my very own
into sheer lifelessness.
 
The barber finishes in ten minutes,
leaving behind
an artifact of his skill;
my head, now,
a scaffolding of restless edges.

I pay my dues in paper bills
and walk out, onto the bustle of the street -
my half-brothers, having converged
into an unfamiliar memory of me.

Thermometer

As soon as I broke into a sweat,
last night, after we finished discussing
humanoids, minerals and eucalyptus,
I put under my left armpit,
an old thermometer,
and watched
its bulb of swollen mercury crawl
along walls of glass intestines;
three million silver fists cupping upwards,
in preparation for a journey of slippery trundles.

The strides at first were hurried;
its metal toes, faintly palsied,
climbing through a basket of spines,
a painted lattice of calibration marks,
within an airless cylinder of anti-gravity.
But eventually, the slender tip of mercury's tongue
retired into a familiar home,
where candles made of paraffin
collapsed in flames, warming
the lungs of formless vacuum;
to match
the temperature of my sleeping cells,
febrile, delirious, sociopathic.

I read out loud
a number, and penned it in my notebook.

Removed from my proximity,
the metal with its vibrating eyes
dilated, discolored, slunk into
its bulbous brain.

I put it back in its rosewood box,
a bed engraved, wallpapered magenta
the thermometer itself -
In an olive suit, hair undone,
invisible eyelids heavy with sleep. 

Colorbook

For many weeks after your trip to Boston,
You would wear to work, I remember,
A crimson top, a black jacket,
and fitted gray pants.

You knew how badly I wanted
to matriculate into the school,
the colors of your attire represented.

Rehearsed almost, in its potential reminders,
My mind would flee,
in the middle of our meetings,
to a land of possibility.

Optimism would soar above my pestilent brain,
rising into a virtual collage
of announcements, handshakes, a graduation
in historic grounds with souls
of revolutionaries breaking into applause.

My mind, a prized awardee of trophies
at second-guessing and self-doubt,
would crystallize into a pin-hole receptacle,
into which positivity and bottled beliefs
would slide in, like slanted rays of undivided light.

I didn't get in, as you know.
I told you this in an email,
my body quaking, my lips turning gray,
my heart shredding into bits of careless juliennes.

But for many months after
I remembered your attire;
An emollient, almost, to my grieving self.
 
Red cotton flowers crawling over your breasts,
Hint of a smile splashed on your lips,
And your eyes, sitting patiently
Behind your wide-rimmed glasses,
Telling me, lovingly,
Don't stop believing.

Fever

Fever broke yesterday
like an eggshell.
 
A crack, at first
Then a slow diffusion
into every corner
of my body's cage.
 
On my cheeks,
the color of cherries -
Webs have formed,
of torn arteries.  
 
My blood,
feels atmospheric
oxygenic,
like a hot summer evening.   
 
I feel a collusion of fists, as if;
My mind is clasped.
 
My head, an album of
quick percussions -
Warm blood
knocking on my temple. 
 
Nausea replaced
my morning's calling.
 
Smiles have dissolved
under the horizon of lips.
 
My mind is a scatter, of
thoughts as light as wood chips.
Fluffy and volatile.
 
I hold my head
in my palms,
as Pain twiddles my brain,
in orbit, like
planets we made of onion rings.
 
A lemon drink
slithers down my throat.
 
The aroma of ginger tea
tickles my skull.
 
I sit in the Palumbo garden
on 13th street,
and watch butterflies play in the sun,
purple shamrocks wilt in thirst,
zinnias stretch out their dainty arms.

Weakness
Auctions me out.

Shortly, I walk home to sleep.

Breakfast with You

I wanted to make breakfast
The morning of our anniversary –
Fried eggs, waffles, boiled sausages, walnut muffins,
Brew a pot of Nicaraguan coffee;
And eat together in our quaint living room
Recalling memories, holding hands
Listening to songs that make us happy.

But you woke up at six

In a dangerous hurry and said to me,
I’m so late for OB rounds, Babe,
I don’t think I can do breakfast, 
Is that okay?
I’ll make up for it another time.

I said,

Yes, that’s okay. I understand.

You blew me a kiss and ran to the shower,

Swung vehemently, to the right,
the hot water knob,
Your body disappearing, within seconds,
Into a shawl of steam.

You dried yourself in haste,

Put on a crisp white shirt,
a pair of checkered pants, a blue spotted tie,
A belt around your waist the color of my skin,
And left to go to work.

I made breakfast anyway,

And ate in silence
Holding onto a photograph of you –
You, smiling behind a piece of glass,
So beautiful –I craved your touch
And felt your presence, as if
You were here, sitting with me,
Recalling memories, holding hands
And listening to music we love.

Murmur

On some nights,
when you are asleep,
I lay on the couch in our quiet living room,
and listen
to the sounds of my heart,

beat, beat, thump, beat

erratically, like a parakeet caught in a cage
ready to fly away.

The Waiting Room

The term Cancer appears
On almost every bulletin on the wall
Spilling across the body of the room, where I
Am awaiting the arrival of my business partner.
The wall itself, a fading white,
Feels interrupted somehow
With false promises of treatment.

On the right arm of the room

Is a large French window.
Wood, here, meets cement,
And glass, and the inhalation of
Growing perennials.
Light floats in like a whorl of wispy feathers
Spinning around the nauseous air within,
That only knows Cancer and its descent –
Tales of permanent absence.

I think about Claudia

And a pearly bouquet of white stephanotis.

The rest is still.

Occasionally, someone walks in,

And talks to the receptionist,
About logistics of conference rooms,
Or how to get a coffee refill, or even
Where the restrooms are.

Employees walk around; some

with purpose, others purposeless,
taking a break from a long day of work;
their shoes rioting
Against a mezzanine floor.

This room, of research and lofty promises,

Is supposed to bring me hope.
Instead I think of death,
And fear becoming a trial of science myself,
Under the pall of a statistic, from which
I have a hard time recovering.

Two PM strikes

On the grandfather clock.

I see my business partner walking

Hastily through the parking lot.  

I take a deep and clearing breath

And proceed to greet him.