JELLYFISH

It was somewhere in between the last day of school and the first, somewhere in between morning and nightfall, somewhere in between New York City and the very tip of Long Island—there was a nine-year-old girl somewhere in between the shoreline and the sand dunes, scanning the horizon like a hawk. Like an Amazon warrior. Like a great cavalry captain. Like Charlemagne on the morning before he took his final enemy: Jellyfish. There were jellyfish on my beach, in my ocean! And that silhouette of a soldier? That was me.

I was the nine-year-old protector. I was the Conqueror of the Jellyfish. I was the Vanquisher of the Venomous. And I was armed. With my plastic bucket and my legs. (Which were strong enough to plant against the pull of the sinking tide, so I could wait until one of those throbbing, red and purple, translucent bubbles of death drifted unsuspecting into the claws of my plastic trap.) And my legs were fast enough to dart back up onto the beach, where I would toss my captives mercilessly into the sand pit I had dug—never stopping for breath! (Only for a juice box, in the cool shade of our green-and-white umbrella.)

I was a man on a mission. Which is to say—girl with a bucket. (But in the bright glare of late August, those two look an awful lot alike.) That bucket was sword and shield. That hole was prison and redemption. There was no repentance. I had no guilt. I was risking life and limb to protect everything I knew to be sacred. And you have to understand: I really believed it was so.

I lost count after twenty-two. The motions became fluid, almost memorized. As day began to sink and pink and orange began to creep their way into the crystal of afternoon sky, seeping like ink into the ocean around my ankles, I grew weary. Mom and Dad called from the beach: Time to turn in my bucket! Time to stop killing the enemy! Time to start thinking about what I wanted for dinner.

And that’s when it hit. The one that got away. Quick like lightning, blinding like gunfire, piercing like the point of a spear. I was hit and I was down. I was down hard and fast; it was a hit-and-run. That tentacle was gone before I even had time to register pain. And that pattern lasted all summer long like a railroad track down the back of my hand: a battle scar to mark the war I had fought.

And somewhere in between then and now irony slipped its way into my vocabulary. Laughter became the antidote for guilt. Sacrifice grew to be a Band-Aid for shame. And unnecessary death became the nightmare that rode me piggyback. Somewhere in between then and now I learned that every move you make echoes outwards from your body like ripples on the ocean from a skipping stone. It is what has taught me that Karma is as tangible as the taste of seawater. Somewhere, somebody has a scorecard, so that eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth really does come around to bite you in the ass.

What is it about immortality? With the right sword and shield, we think we can fend off anger, fear, and hatred. If our legs are strong enough, we think we can outrun age, loss, and death. That we can always truly live as Master of all the Jellyfish.

EVAPORATE

Today lasted so long, by the time I arrived at nightfall,

I had forgotten that this morning was this morning.

It seemed so far away, like yesterday, or the day before.

And days and days and days unfolded in the hours between

when first I woke and when now I sit. I notice minutes

move, much more than when I was younger.

Today I looked at my face in a mirror.

I braided my hair. I put on a dress.

Today a child shook my hand like a grown-up

and told me she was in the sixth grade.

It sounded like she said she wasn’t the sick grey

which made me think that is what she thought I was.

I am watching parts of me evaporate like sidewalk water.

This wet grey, this nighttime dew, gone before morning.

THE LADDER

Whenever I hurt myself, my mother says

it is the universe’s way of telling me to

slow down. She also tells me to put some

coconut oil on it. It doesn’t matter what it

is. She often hides stones underneath my

pillow when I come home for the weekend.

The stones are a formula for sweet dreams

and clarity. I dig them out from the sheets,

she tells me what each one is for. My throat

hurts, so she grinds black pepper into a

spoonful of honey, makes me eat the entire

thing. My mother knows how to tie knots

like a ship captain, but doesn’t know how

I got that sailor mouth. She falls asleep

in front of the TV only until I turn it off,

shouts, I was watching that! The sourdough

she bakes on Fridays is older than I am.

She sneaks it back and forth across the country

when she flies by putting the starter in small

containers next to a bag of carrots.

They think it’s ranch dressing, she giggles.

She makes tea by hand. Nettles, slippery elm,

turmeric, cinnamon—my mother is a recipe

for warm throats and belly laughs. Once,

she fell off of a ladder when I was three.

She says all she was worried about was

my face as I watched her fall.

BRICKLAYER

It is snowing in New York and the Bricklayer’s hands are cold.

He should have worn gloves—would have worn gloves

if he had thought there would be a chance of snow—but it is

April for God’s sake. Sometimes my father yells so loudly,

he scares himself. Then he has to sit somewhere very still

and very dark to return. Sometimes there is hair in the shower drain,

sometimes the jacket doesn’t fit. This hat is itchy, Mother,

and my fingers hurt. Someone has to build this wall. This house,

this family, someone has to place the bricks just so. I will not be

home in time for the holidays. Make sure someone says grace at the

table, make sure someone says thank you. Sometimes my father

wanders room to room in the early hours. He stalks the ghosts

that walk our hallways. The Bricklayer’s back is hurting. He bends

into himself like a folding chair, his flannel does not keep out

the snow. This head is itchy, Mother, and my fingers hurt.

FOREST FIRES

I arrive home from JFK in the rosy hours

to find a new 5-in-1 egg slicer and dicer

on our dining room table.

This is how my father deals with grief.

Three days ago, I was in the Santa Cruz

Redwoods tracing a mountain road

in the back of a pickup truck, watching

clouds unravel into spider webs.

Two days from now, there will be

forest fires, so thick, they will have to

evacuate Santa Cruz. The flames will paint

the evening news a different shade of orange,

and when it happens, I will be in New York City

watching something else on TV. Commercials,

probably, which is all that seems to play

on hospital television sets: the beeping

from the nurses’ station mixing with sales jingles—

the theme song for the ailing. My grandmother’s tiny body

is a sinking ship on white sheets. I hold her hand

and try to remember open highways.

It really goes to show that it doesn’t take

much with these dry conditions to start a fire,

a Cal Fire spokesman will tell CNN on Sunday.

Fire officials have been working tirelessly, but

controlling something this big is impossible.

My mother will point at the celluloid flames,

remind me how lucky I am, how close I had been,

how narrowly I missed this disaster. My father

will point out a commercial for the Brown & Crisp,

repeat line by line how it bakes, broils, steams,

fries, and barbeques. He will write down

the number to order it later.

Three days ago, I was barefoot. Balancing

on train tracks, the full moon an unexpected visitor,

the smoke-free air as clean and sharp

as these city lungs could stand.

Two days from now I will find my father

making egg salad in the kitchen, exhausted

after an all-night shift at the hospital. I will

ask if he needs help and understand

when he says no. I will leave him to slice

and dice the things he can. My grandmother

folds her hands on mine and strokes

my knuckles like they are a wild animal she is

trying to tame. She tells me I am gorgeous,

watches a commercial, forgets my name,

tells me I am gorgeous again.

My father watches from the bedside chair,

his mother and daughter strung together

with tightrope hands, fingers that look

like his own. And somewhere in California

a place I once stood is burning.

POPPY

Poppy is four years old. The only shelf in the cabinet she can reach is the one with the plastic Tupperware. She has started filling containers with water, snapping on lids, and placing them about the house. It is her new favorite game. One for Mama, one for Papa, one for Tessa, one for Ollie. Her hands can hold one at a time. Her dress is the color of marmalade, she chirps songs that have no words.

When Poppy is twenty-five, she will follow a love to France. In the summertime she will make jars of cold tea, place them in the sun to steep, forget them in the sunny corners of their house. He will love her for this. That, and the daisies in her hair; the way she reads in doorways, purring show tunes to the crinkle of the page.

When she is forty-seven, Poppy’s garden will be the talk of the street. Her French Tulips will dip over the sidewalk, dragging leaves against the pavement. She will carry jugs of water—overflowing onto her arms, her overalls—back and forth from the house to the yard. This is her way now, since her son has worn holes through the garden hose with his trike. She does not mind. He rides circles around the jugs while she sings and turns the soil.

Eighty. And Poppy carries cups of water to leave around the house. One to the desk for while she is writing, one to her bedside every night. The walk to the kitchen is long and her lavender nightgown is thin. Open the cabinet, find the cup. Turn on the tap, fill it up. Snap on the lid, off to bed. She hums to the radiator. Sometimes she forgets the words.

SOMETHING WE DON’T TALK ABOUT, PART I

One night when it got really bad,

she left right in the middle of dinner.

She got up like she had forgotten

the olive oil but instead she picked

her keys off the rack like a small skeleton

in her hand. She pushed the elevator button

slowly, as though turning off the oven.

She waited for it to reach our floor,

she pulled open the heavy metal door.

She walked in, pressed 1. We watched it happen.

All three of us. The steering wheel of our family

being pulled out through the dashboard.

The slow-motion tire screech.

That empty highway. I remember trying to listen

for the elevator doors closing in the lobby.

PK said, She took her house keys, answering

a question nobody had asked.

I didn’t tell him that even after a crash,

a key still fits the ignition.

There just isn’t anything left to drive.

We kept eating the meal she had made.

I kept listening for a jingle of metal.

But only radio static filled the room,

not a single siren blared. Not even one.

DRAGONS

My father and brother were born

with cannonball fists. Avalanche tongues.

They know how to light flame to the

smallest injustice. How to erupt into

fireworks from the inside. The silent

anger too. They are capable of keeping

the engine humming, the deep vibration

of fury warm underneath. Me—I was

not born with enough fuel. My anger

often melts into sadness, it will just

disintegrate into shame or fear, my

clenched teeth release into chatter.

But you have found the right mix of

arrogance and alcohol. Place your hands

on me one more time, then again, exhale

the cigarette into my eyes, tell me again

how I’m just not understanding the point,

remind me how you are an expert, touch

my knee, my thigh, my lower back, ignore

me twice, three times, continue talking over

me with the man to my right. There is a

beast in my veins that was birthed by my

father. It is quiet, it sleeps through most

nights. Tonight, sir, my tail twitches in

the darkest caves. Be careful, darling.

Your footsteps land heavy here. Your

racket will wake the dragons.

HAND-ME-DOWNS

You have taken to wearing around your father’s

hand-me-down anger. I wish that you wouldn’t.

It’s a few sizes too big and everyone can see it doesn’t

fit you, hangs loose in all the wrong places,

even if it does match your skin color.

You think you’ll grow into it: that your arms

will beef up after all the fighting and it will sit on your

shoulders if only you pin it in the right places with

well-placed conviction.

The bathroom mirror tells you, you look good,

your fists look a lot more justified.

When you dig your hands deep into the pockets,

you’ll find stories he left there for you to hand out

to the other boys like car bombs.

On days when everything else is slipping through

your fingers, you can wrap yourself inside of this anger.

This will keep you warm at night, help you drift off to sleep,

with the certainty that no matter what happens,

it will still be there when you wake up.

The longer you wear it, the better it fits.

Until some of those stories are your own. The holes

in the sleeve are from the bullets you dodged yourself.

When it rips, snags on a barbed wire fence or

someone else’s family, don’t worry.

Your mother and your sister will mend it:

patch the holes, sew the tears, replace a button or two.

They will help you back into it and tell you how proud

they are of you; how good it looks on you. The same way

it looked on your dad and your granddad, too.

And on his father before him and on his father before him.

But back then? Back then there was only sand. Until someone

drew a line. Someone built a wall. Someone threw a stone.

And the crack in the skull that it hit fractured perfectly

like twigs on the branches of a family tree, so someone

threw a stone back. And each fracture, each tiny break

wound itself together into thread. The thread pulled itself

around him, your great-great-great-great-somebody.

And on the other side of the wall, they were knitting just as fast and

theirs fit them just as well, only in a slightly different shade.

So I’m asking, when the time comes, who is going to be

the first to put down the needle and thread?

Who is going to be the first to remember that

their grandfather suffered just as many broken windows,

broken hearts, broken bones? And the first time

you come down to dinner, and your son is sitting at the

dining room table wearing your hatred on his shoulders,

who is going to be the first to tell him it is finally time to take it off?