The Night My Mother Met Lola *
My mother sits on the edge of her bed,
like music a conversation, soars to the clouds;
I think what does she know of gypsies’ traditions,
the meaning of Flamenco dancers’ itinerant lives?
Lola wants to read her fortune,
describe what’s on the other side
away from feather beds, inheritance rights.
Outside, moonlight thins into a silver crest.
They share premonitions, old tales,
memories stored on top of armoires’
higher shelves stacked with useless money
because it expired after the war; another loss.
Lola sings, “Ay Pena Penita, Pena,”
a ballad of heartache and banishment
conjuring a caravan of wanderers
dancing from India into the bedroom.
My mother shares her own tragedy,
brothers disappearing one by one into the dark,
the father’s death, the mother’s brow wilted
by loneliness and hunger brought by war.
Lola insists to teach her the right way
to wrap herself with a Manila shawl,
shake her hips to drop heavy burdens
like mortal sins at the confessional.
Both remember the bombings,
darkening windows, meandering lines
to grab a little rice, a friendly conversation,
the heartache of their unattainable dreams.
Singing begins softly, Lola’s voice, seashells
swept by sadness and sandy grains of insomnia.
A red sun pushes itself above the horizon to listen
to my mother’s oceanic laments of separation.
Exile stories mingled with love, pain and mystery.
Lola anoints my mother’s forehead with olive oil
as a dule of doves traces the indigo sky with comets
healing what’s left of the wounded night, for now.
* Lola Flores, a gypsy dancer and singer famous and popular for generations in Spain.
Haibun
After I Kissed my Convalescent Husband at the Hospital
I kissed my husband good bye and walked into the night, a sad sliver of moonlight and my wool coat as my only companions. It was November 1st and the residents of Srinagar, -Muslims and Hindus, had no reason to celebrate, neither did I.
On the deserted boulevard a few street lights shone over the onyx-like wet pavement. After a while a rhythmic distant sound entered my consciousness. Alerted I accelerated my steps towards Dahl Gate to hire a shikara to take me to our houseboat. The sound advanced faster. To my right, on the sleek reflective pool of the sidewalk I noticed the silhouette of a person, a man no doubt. I could hear his breathing closer to my ear, not a pleasant scenario for a foreign woman walking alone at night.
As the shadow loomed over my head I turned to face him, swung the nylon bag I carried -with two glass jars inside- and using all my strength hit him again and again hollering like a wolf. To my surprise the ghost ran away.
on a cold rainy night
a man is defeated
by the food of a woman
Earthquakes
I lean on the door jamb with my neighbor
unlike thirty years ago at my first earthquake.
I could swear my husband asked me to lie down
before he called my name, slapped me softly,
insisted I fainted watching violently uprooted trees.
That day the red and purple sky scared me
like now do those bruises Margarite wears,
the battered wives’ badge of honor.
She assured me she wasn’t one until she was
lying on a hospital bed, two arms broken.
That first earthquake didn’t unsettle me
with freeways damaged I continue working
on my computer, forgot the office, the fear.
But for weeks my hands shook on the mirror,
my chin trembled sensing footsteps, my tea soured.
She’s sour too, angry at the firmness of fate,
the blue moods stopping her from packing,
the scratchy microphone of his throaty voice
ordering her to attention: clean, cook, stay.
She sweeps floors, performs her wifely duty,
gets beaten anyway between dreams
of disappearing into space like a meteorite,
owning a garden of lavender and rosemary,
knowing her hunger for companionship is dead,
and the joy in her hips of honey will not return.
The trees shed their leaves, her skin peels
by the fireplace she gets cigarrette burns,
on her head’s bold patches, she paints birds.
She sinks daily into a dark well of sorrows,
violins never play for her in the night.
I tell her paralyzing anxiety made me faint,
being an ostrich hiding our heads under the sand
could killed us as well as earthquake’s debris.
I whisper that the way to freedom is to abandon
earthquake drama, leave the door jam and step outside.
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