Family & Ancestors

The fallen Latte is the sign. It is from within the row of Latte that
we feel our strength. It is the severed capstone that gives us Their
message, "Ti monhayon I che'cho." We will not rest until the
Latte is whole.

— Cecilia C. T. Perez from "Signs of Being: A Chamoru
Spiritual Journey" (1997)

~

i haligi
a pillar

i tasa
a capstone

i tataotao
a body

~

his hands —
husk coconut —

cooks and
feeds [us] —

stories — this
raised house —

at quarry
outline forms

At six I lived for spells:
how a few Hawaiian words could call
up the rain, could hymn like the sea
in the long swirl of chambers
curling in the nautilus of a shell,
how Amida’ s ballads of the Buddhaland
in the drone of the priest’ s liturgy
could conjure money from the poor
and give them nothing but mantras,
the strange syllables that healed desire.

I lived for stories about the war
my grandfather told over hana cards,
slapping them down on the mats
with a sharp Japanese kiai.

We thought nothing of it, he says,
though some came so close to where we slept.

I try to see him as a boy,
back in the Philippines, waking

to the sound of machine guns.
His family would spend their morning

spreading a paste over the sores
of the house’ s thick walls.

He tells how he touched
points where bullets entered,

his fingers, he says, disappeared into the holes,

as if inside there existed a space
where everything from this world could vanish.

1. X-Ray

1.

I can tell you, sweeping the several jigsaw lizards
away from your casket, away from their expert
invasions, kneeling by the order of our births
alongside the mother-of-pearl mosaics,
the family at your death keeps to form,
having to act out that love of endings.

Powder rises
from a compact, platters full of peppermints,
a bowl of sour pudding.
A cup of milk before me tastes of melted almonds.

It is the story of the eve of my beginning. Gifts for me:

boxes of poppies, pocket knife,
an elaborate necklace
made of ladybugs.

My skirt rushing north

There is something round and toothless
about my dolls.

They have no faith. Their mouths, young muscle
to cut me down.
Their pupils, miniature bruises.

I hear the cries of horses, long faces famished,

A hundred and one butter lamps are offered to my uncle who
is no more.

Distraction proves fatal in death. A curtain of butter imprints
in air.

After the burning of bones, ashes are sent on pilgrimage. You are
dead, go into life, we pray. My uncle was a man given to giggles
in solemn moments.

Memory springs like crocuses in bloom. Self conscious and
precise.

Without blurring the cornea, details are resuscitated. Dried yak
meat between teeth. Semblance of what is.

Do not be distracted, Uncle who is no more.

I want to reach you —
in that city where the snow

only shimmers silver
for a few hours. It has taken

seventeen years. This trip,
these characters patterned

in black ink, curves catching
on the page like hinges,

this weave of letters fraying
like the lines on my palm,

all broken paths. Outside,
no snow. Just the slow pull

of brown on the hills, umber
dulling to a bruise until the city

is just a memory of stained teeth,
the burn of white marble

1.
They make such uncomfortable clank
child of earth
child of fire
These are your tools of the trade
difficult when you use them

A large trunk with children darting
in all directions
appears slippery in its sheen
adorned with thorns