Clap When You Land: List 3

Her hands pluck the feathers off a chicken.
She is methodical, her fingers fast along the fluff
that she drops into a plastic bag in the kitchen sink.

But if fingers can be angry,
hers must be wrathful; she plucks in hard snatches.

The developed world wastes gas,
raises carbon emissions & water levels
that threaten to disappear us in a single gulp.

Sand & soil & sinew & smiles:
all bartered. & who reaps? Who eats?

All white like this shows undue devotion to the Saints,
& our priests don’t want to know what’s practiced in secret.

Good thing we know this ramshackle neighborhood
as well as we know the webs between our fingers.

I use the flashlight on my phone to get my bearings in the house.

& Carline weeps, & Tía prays & curses & coaxes

a child to breathe breathe breathe
pressing her two fingers against his chest
beating his heart for him oblivious

to the slick of his body & blue of his lips
to the collective sob of the room
to the spirits who would greet him on their side of the veil.

I have been so entrenched
in death, & drowning, & funerals,
that this seems an amazing thing

to see this babe clutch at the air.

She’ll come back if Carline needs help swaddling.

sick lost anger has no place on the board
I was impotent in my feeling never let them

see you sweat

He’d received an email from the tournament commission.
Disqualifying me from any other summer matches.

The airline representatives
say grievance. don't say grieve.
say unprecedented. don't say crash.

...we see videos on social media
of another black boy shot another black girl pulled over
another kid in the Bronx stabbed outside a bodega.

She gets a glint in her eye

like she’s imagining she can repot us, all of us, onto a new planet
where we can grow with deep & understanding roots,

where we will rise & flourish into tree houses...

We rock in unison & don’t turn on the porch light
as darkness falls & fireflies flitter over us like incandescent halos.

The airline has offered money to preempt lawsuits.

“She, the wife, has connections at the consulate.
She’s made it difficult for your father to request you.
He needed her citizenship papers to help obtain your visa.”

How does an overeducated orphan

become an obstetrician

She is silent in her assessment of the good & bad,
the ones that are allowed to stay, the ones that must be tossed.
I imagine she is plucking through her words with that same scrutiny.

When I next see El Cero in the neighborhood, I treat him like a stray;
feed him crumbs of placating attention
that I hope will make him more pet than predator,

but will remind him not to howl at my door.

How her waist bent like a willow tree
during the onslaught of a storm.

& when Tia hosts a ceremony, the crowd outside is legion.

I avoid...the people hanging on their stoops;
I ignore ice-cream trucks & hurled catcalls.

I let the noises of a whole family lull me into sleep.

But besides the busybodies, I’ve loved
that the Johnsons never minded my presence,

& Dre & I would watch TV after dinner,
or play with her mother’s makeup.

The patron saint of the ocean
is known for containing many parts of herself:

she is a nurturer, but she is also a ferocious defender.

Tía already has an apprentice. Me.

& even I cannot wield miracles the way she can.

I wish I knew the rift
that grew this sea between them.

Her tone is a serrated knife.