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The Vegetable Air

You’ re clean shaven in this country
where trees grow beards of moss,
where even bank tellers
look a little like banditos
in vests as pungent as sweatsuits.
Still, you prefer the vegetable air
to almost any other place on the map.
After the heart attack,
you considered Paris —
the flying buttresses,
the fractured light of its cathedrals;

Cutting the Sun

The sun-face looms over me, gigantic-hot, smelling
of iron. Its rays striated,
rasp-red and muscled as the tongues
of iguanas. They are trying to lick away
my name. But I
am not afraid. I hold in my hands
(where did I get them)
enormous blue scissors that are
just the color of sky. I bring
the blades together, like
a song. The rays fall around me
curling a bit, like dried carrot peel. A far sound
in the air — fire
or rain? And when I’ ve cut
all the way to the center of the sun
I see

Port Royal

Ignoring the local reliquiae —
neoclassical arches in ruin,
courtyards, their fountains toppled,

prados flourishing in prickle-weed, esplanades
no longer level enough to collect rainwater,
much less respect for the Imperio de España

tarnished by an islander’ s mock-British accent —
two fisherman returned at sundown.
Antiquaries themselves, these fishermen

schooled in the currents, the tide,
the tunneled limestone of the coral reefs,
preferred the graceful curves of the £.

ginen the micronesian kingfisher [i sihek]

~

[our] nightmare : no
birdsong —
the jungle was riven emptied
of [i sihek] bright blue green turquoise red gold
feathers — everywhere : brown
tree snakes avian
silence —

the snakes entered
without words when [we] saw them it was too late —
they were at [our] doors sliding along
the passages of [i sihek]
empire — then

ginen tidelands [latte stone park] [hagåtña, guåhan]

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

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