poetry

working class

Lauren Arienzale

one summer
we lost power right before dinner

so we stood in the kitchen
and feasted on rocky road ice cream

i told you stories of day camp drama
and library books brimming with
distraction fantasy

and it felt so simple,
then

your mother called
and begged for money
that night

and i was young enough
for you to think
i didn’t even notice

When You Talk About Home

J.B. Williams

When you talk about home
            the frostbite's mouth
            bites in your words
                        dark like permafrost

your eyes like obsidian, eyes like flint
            eyes like a February sky

When you talk about home, that word
            loaded like a pickup
                        bed loaded like a gun

your voice is the same incredible quiet
            there is right before it
                       snows

unreformed.

Brandi Bishop-Phelps

i cannot erupt as lily bloom
do not ask me to
strapless summer dresses grazing unbent knees
run me down the side of the valley in moss
fern
bent branches
snap me from tree-limbs and do not recite your great aunt’s wisdom in paper syntax

snapdragons are for planting in old tires in forgotten side yards in patchy earth
i will run my hands along the ridges and lean into the bees
do you remember the bees?
they hum as scribes.

telling stories of why they are dying and how
sweet the black raspberry tastes to a mortal proboscis
we tell the bees and they tell us
no one is listening. they write it in honey and feed it to us

i spread myself as nettle
do not pretend i cannot
pricking my own palms in rustling gestures
an intentional fledging pushed out of wild northern nests
tumbling
silver maple seed
crush me as bolted basil in forgotten pots and stop your proselytizing.

i was the one there when they cut down the old willow
i watched the callous way they tore through her gown
ran steel along her roots
this is why i cannot believe anything

i will not erase measureless springs
do not ask again
i have buried dandelions in the folds of my arms
dried coneflower against my skin for un-winged pollinators
mustards and mulberries
pressed in memorandum

No. fold me rooted beneath a Douglas fir and do not speak at all.

Tenderness

Triston Dabney

I know somewhere,
one day,
before we are to leave
and ascend
from this good, blue
Earth—

a little Black
boy will read this
(Be it fridge or notebook
it may call home).

I have no
real words for you—
only marrow
and sucked bones—
only heart
and belonging,
and softness—

an irony of tenderness.

You, little Black boy,
will be handed
some grand adventure
I implore you to follow.

And hear me now:
“I’m so proud of you.”

Well,
come on now,
come up out of that room,
drink and eat well,
get fat,
and don’t forget to pray.

I may need you one day—
to share your back,
change these diapers,
and stir
these here beans.

To pick up around here
when I’m gone,
to hold my mule,
water these plants.

I may need you
to be brave
for braveness’ sake—
to cling to the goodness
you weren’t ever born with.

I may need you to live,
one day,
by being a part
of the reason
someone stays.

In the Sun

-        For Langston

Triston Dabney

Just now,
I have heard the blaring 
horns 
of an OutKast 
song on the radio
on my way from work.

And in my mind,
I imagine
we are 14 again.
Differently, this time,
on a day in July,
lying on the sunken 
carpet of your bedroom.

Our backs turned against 
the floor as it holds us up.
Lying ear to ear,
staring at the ceiling,
talking of sex and 
rap songs.

You are still sober.
You are not like your dad.
You have never rinsed
your fingers 
in the salt of escapism.

Your mom
still has her hair
and her complete breasts
as she steps in 
to bring us sweet tea.
Me,
I am not a savior.
I speak more in laughter
than in silence.

There are just boys.
And radios and Polaroids.

There are no guns.
No mouths to feed
Or flowers to lay.

There is only hunger.
and summer heat.
Nothing hunting us,
Just ripening, softening,
like raisins in the sun. 

Another Instant

Jesse Graves

Rain filled the morning as though it were a cup
held under a faucet, time filtered by the hour,
my day awaiting its axial moment,
the slow, certain shift from remembrance to presence.

Memories that return as dreams hold their forms
through images recovered from a past year,
the pre-millennial tension of 1999 made real
again after two decades of forgetting.

Everyone alive then was alive for another instant,
until my eyes began to open and the pale light
of a stormy morning bled through the window.
Twenty years felt like the burning spire of a cathedral.

Warm December

                                    In Memoriam: Robert Denham

Jesse Graves

Fog smothers the valley
            beneath Buffalo Mountain
and will not rise or disperse—
            the sun will have to burn it away.
Warm and wet mid-December.
            The crows love this weather,
sun rising fast to dry wet wings.
            Squirrels do not love it,
branches slick and prone to failure,
every scamper perilous.

Another old scholar has died.
            His explications will live on
in seldom seen pages, but
for the eyes that find them,
just a little more light shines
            onto obscure verses.
Now a Carolina wren lands in the maple,
            who seems to always be
asking, “What you see, what you see, 

            what you see?”

The cosmos abides, above
            and around us, and there
must be many small pens
            streaking many small pages
this morning— a new Tu Fu
            alive and striving
in the high climes of faraway China,
            a new Coleridge by the Lakes,
new Baudelaire skirting back alleys,
            new Dickinson among garden roses.
And here, me, new and old
all at once, chasing words
into ink, ink back into words.

Static

David M. Alper

It'll have cleared by morning, says the anchor,
her pixellated face fracturing on the weather map.
In the kitchen below, a shout of "Don't forget the
milk!"—the voice rising up through the floorboards
like steam. There's one entry in the diary: Today the
bird flew into the window and dropped, wings
spread out like a knife. On the bus, a murmur
behind me: "If I could just touch her hand."
The newspaper article laid out on the table reads:
Hope Drains as Search for Survivors Ends. A tea
spill spreads across the headline, converting grief
into a stain that will not come out. A mother calls
to tell the azaleas are in bloom early this year, their
petals the same shade as the dress she wore the
night she left the father. In the corridor, a child
whistles a tune that unwinds halfway through the
note. Even a tune has limits, its voice a string drawn
taut, unwinding. At bedtime, I hear the wind—its
parched voice scraping against the roof. I have no
idea whether it's coming or going.

Phillips 66, 1972

            Lebanon, Missouri

Matthew W. Schmeer

across the highway
            gas station lights
fireflies flickering

father's hands
            caked with grease

another customer
            cherry red mustang
full tank, oil change

reflected in glass
the meadow waves goodbye

half moon rises
beneath withered stalks
secret mice scurry

dead heat lightning
my father curses

wrench clatters pavement
a gunshot echo
my father twitches

alone in garage
he prays to metal

on a river delta
my father's gun
holes, holes, everywhere

blue skies open
no clouds rain fire

a small girl
            walks on dirt path
falls, cries out

the mustang whines
            beneath father's hands

in moonlight glass
            fireflies seek
themselves as mates

mice keep quiet
reveal no secrets

under yellow bulbs
father turns and turns
an engine, a heart

under black stars
a meadow unfolds

The Ghost Festival

                    — To Those I Hold Dear

Xiaoly Li

Yearning all year long,
even separated by the Milky Way,
lovers await the day of Qixi
to cross the Magpie Bridge—
the Cowherd finds his Weaver Girl,
if only for a single night.
 

But where is my bridge in mid-July
when the gate of the underworld opens?
Only the sun beats down relentlessly; I can’t see
your shadows. Only robins carol cheerily;
could that be your whisper? 

Those I once held close
have drifted beyond reach—

the one whose childhood letter
long faded and yellowed,
the one whose smile on the screen
froze into the final face,
the one whose weary hands
removed the oxygen tube.

No goodbyes.
Not at your sides.
Just me, alone in my car, choking back tears.
Just yellow lotus, rising from silt in the meadow.

Found/Lost

Cathy Thwing

I.

Bed-time stories by Dickens,
Defoe, and Hugo—or those black
and white war films every Saturday
afternoon—we kids wondered,
What’s it like to live through history?

Gunshots at a Lincoln Continental
in Dallas, the kitchen towel wet
from Mom’s tears, Dad silent
at the table. Not history, but an em
dash in an ordinary day.

We still ate chocolate ice cream
after supper. More shots fired—
we went to art class, anyway,
painted red and black X’s,
inhaling the sweet suspended

particles of tempera powder.
Gas lines, recessions, walls torn
down, and new walls erected,
not history, but the background
noise for jobs to go to, laundry

to wash, always dishes in the sink,
endless tasks of living. It’s only now,
careers closed, friends disabled,
or dead, old connections crumbling,
wars still raging, sea levels still rising,

that we pause to ask, Is it going to be OK?
We stand beneath a palo verde, gold
in bloom, our masks in our back pockets
or dangling from our necks. Morning sun lights
the edges of every blossom.

II.

We get lost in a moment
when the sunlight shines through palo verde

            The sun shines through palo verde petals
            and we stand in the golden fog

We stand in a golden fog—
is it dawn or dusk?

            Fall to dawn, or rise to dusk
            Are we standing or lying, head in clouds?

We’re lying with our heads in the clouds
the light of a mockingbird song

            A mockingbird sings and everything’s bright
            only song and sun and golden petal

Surround the song with sun, the golden petal
We get lost in a moment

Chī fàn le ma—

Mea Andrews

a common greeting
for ‘have you eaten’
I learned

while studying Mandarin
in college, meals
cooked by women

with hands I never
imagined knowing
until I was there

and I remembered
the meals
my grandmother

made, fingers digging
veins from shrimp,
cutting red potatoes

because russets
weren't the same when
spread across five

stock pots of gumbo
in a cousin’s
driveway.

Hands I
could hold that
cooked for children
and guests, who
never questioned
if she had eaten.

Blood

Alexandria Wyckoff

I watch the word slip 
out of my father’s mouth 
like an arrowhead as it pierces 
my mother’s chest. 

Indian. 

A term declared 
by eager explorers 
over half a millennium ago, 
desiccating sacred lands, 
like the diseases they carried.

My mother sets her jaw, 
her features paint a portrait 
of the Mohican blood she carries. 

Native American. 
First Nation. 

Those who roamed 
the Americas, living 
in harmony with the earth 
and the spirits around them. 

Today, physical features 
are the closest I get 
to understanding a culture 
that runs through my blood.
I stare at the mirror and see
only “white;” my Mohican
soul adrift in swaying grasses. 

Each generation loses 

another piece of the past, 
thousands of Native 
Americans bleeding
into a new America, 

trampled by Europeans
and the term Indian.

Arietta Melancholia

Ryan Harper

Do you too feel the sorrow around two
o’clock—the sink of life
when life is overlit?
In even every lift a drain—
in the core a forfeiture
of gains, a want of night,
new day, or not.

How, then, big and involved,
the simple memories of rest—
of promise and the cool, mown grass;
how the gentle wind helps—or not,
you know? Terrible two
again: in firm and falling figure,
its central, inventing ghost.

Grandpa worked fields in two countries

Alberto Saldaña Uribe

and in a photo, he’s cheesing, teeth bared in glory standing legs wide, hands in pockets, brown pants so the soil stains won’t show, undershirt, white button-down, red-brown jacket on top. red bandana tied under the chin, tejana resting atop his head. he’s been working fields his whole life, working out of Lomita at that time. when you ask about the fields, he’ll tell you about the patrones, the community, how the air always got colder come dawn, how the sun at its peak would sweat bodies like onions in a pan, strained backs, and the pride of bringing home freshly picked  produce  they saw as beautiful  while the bosses deemed them  too imperfect  for market.

you’ll see the photo and start to ask questions. this isn’t the first time he’s worked in agriculture, wasn’t the first time he stepped on american soil. his eldest son was a bracero, but you forget he was one, too. and you're used to seeing him smiling just like in the photo. you’ve heard the stories of working fields in Jalisco, sharecropping alongside his father, breaking out and growing crops of his own. but when you ask about his time as a bracero, his grin fades, as he struggles to swallow the lump in his throat, reluctantly recalling the noxious smell, that sting of gas and vinegar, and he’ll grow even more quiet as he massages his knuckles and stares a hole through his  shoes,  muttering  fractal  memories of  el polvo blanco  that  stained every inch  of  his  skin.

mi querido viejo.

Alberto Saldaña Uribe

open casket.
face pulled as tight as possible, trying to iron out any imperfections.
ain’t they realize the wrinkles were part of your charm?

dressed in a navy blue suit.
Momma wanted you looking as sharp as can be.
                                    i always thought you looked best in your Dickies and Ben Davis.

vigil at 7 pm on a weekday.
mortuary home had to open up the rooms with extra seating.
                                    even then could barely fit, pressed in the pews to seal away any emptiness.

video package my siblings prepared.
playing on a loop, your favorite tracks serenading old photos.
                                    some of them songs, Gramps, they sting like alcohol on open wounds.

morning mass in Lomita.
cars filled out multiple blocks on both sides of the street.
                                    not a single person left your side, following all the way to the cemetery.

priest gave a small sermon
right there on the burial greens, Grandma bit her cheeks through most of it.
                                    but even Grams couldn’t hold it cuando los mariachis empezaron a cantar.

burial in Rancho Palos Verdes.
out on the greenest of hills, they planted a tree alongside you
fitting really, think about it, “la gente buena no se entierra, se siembra”[1].

___________________________
[1] “La Fiesta” - Pedro Capó

Creative Nonfiction

The 1st Sunlit Day, Ending with Adrianne Lenker’s “Zombie Girl”

Sophie Houck

It occurs to me, when I’m halfway down Broadway, emerging from the clutches of stifling downtown traffic caused by distracted teenagers fleeing the schools’ parking lots (try not to wreck your car: impossible) that my heater is scorching me and I can feel my face being warmed and bronzed, rather, by the rays reflecting through my window. My skin aches for the sunshine, my limbs unravel themselves in the light. I nearly swerve off the road.

My window takes a moment to unstick itself from its crevice, frozen just last week, and jolts down and down. It’s intimate, choosing to allow the first feeling of spring into my orbit, ready for its wreckage and blooms tagging along. And I forget how winter felt for this second. All I see before me: the open road, sunlight, my memory outside every day for months. The brisk wind breezes in, waving to me for the first time since October. I haven’t worn shorts since the storm and I wonder what metaphor I could make of this, so I plan out my outfits in this heat-wave: shorts in the line-up. Unfortunately, I haven’t been as immersed into songs by Adrianne Lenker as I promised myself I would be, but I let “anything” pour from my speakers and tickle my small fly-away hairs. I join the masses bothering anyone daring to mingle nearby with my yallternative (a word I’ve learned as of yesterday) songs. It filters out of my windows, even on the highway because it is 50 degrees and January, so who cares about the wind? 

My melodies interlace with a stranger’s, spiraling into the sunlit sky, mashing genres entirely. We are two rebels pushing our agendas onto I-26 (and to be honest the traffic is so bad I can’t justify closing my window, anyways.) I feel so hometown–we are so hometown–that I realize I’m out of my mind to be car-less and city-more in this coming fall, once the colleges ring their dinner bells to tell us to come in from playing in our street. But for now it is warm (the mountains!) and I love it here. For now, I’m pretty sure the stranger’s song is one of my favorites, but it has morphed into a new paradigm echoing across the atmosphere and I can’t tell where mine begins and hers ends. I look into her window and I see a life.

Soon, I turn into my neighborhood. Another window down! Maybe every day we are more human. One day I will be so changed and, my friend, you will be so changed, and we will no longer recognize ourselves as the kids in that photo last summer. I could take off now and be back there tomorrow; but this town has upended itself and, at the very least, I’ve learned empathy struggles to cross state lines. But from a glance through this window, I think the driver’s dog’s hair blends with his own head. It’s liminal and weird and the guy sort of looks like Santa Claus so this weather is probably refreshing for him. I want to tell him that he is more hopeful than the real Santa (no, this is not an oxymoron); that what a joy it is to be a man who looks like Santa Claus in January when nothing else seems to be joyful; that that beard must be hot come July.

Then I’m alone on the road, but the trees are bending their branches into my nostrils and I embrace them right back. I understand Jack Kerouac now, but maybe with a few more suburbs. Guitar comes as a strange ping into my ears, so I turn the dial up and Adrianne’s “zombie girl” is on. I’ve never heard it before. Her voice is a presence I never knew was absent. She is the wide ocean swallowing me whole; she is the Valentine love letter sitting in my closet from eight years back; she is the chirping birds making me cry with their screams of spring. It’s in my bloodstream and I can only hear the soft spaces of breath between the words so I sit in my driveway ‘til the song is done and I wonder what I could ever say to an apology.

My Mother’s Teacup

Julia Snrubs

I broke my mother’s teacup tonight.

It’s Monday, and I’ve come home from work, eaten tortilla soup cold from the stove, and gotten started on dishes.

With a family of seven it’s usually an hour-long affair but there are fewer than usual today, so I put in my earbuds, do my usual half-hour of doomscrolling in the room adjacent to the kitchen, and get to work. Once I get started, it goes by quickly and I decide to make myself a little hot chocolate to enjoy after. I’m looking for my favorite cup– a rosy pink mug I found at Goodwill for three dollars and is the perfect shape for holding– when the teacup tips from the shelf above as if it had been standing on the edge of the roof for ages working up the nerve to jump.

On instinct I manage to catch it, to keep it from shattering on the counter below into thousands of china shards by pinning it against the shelf. Its partner in suicide, a green metal thermos, isn’t so lucky. The thermos clatters across the counter and the stove, making a tremendous noise that unsurprisingly draws no one to the kitchen to investigate. 

My mother has always been particular about her teacups. As a little girl I would see them high up on the shelf above the spice rack and long to touch something so pretty and delicate, but she always explained to me that her grandmother had given them to her and they were very special. This I understood, and respected.

When I got a little older she would break out the fine china for special guests, and I got the privilege of drinking from one of the delicate little cups and eating a cookie or two off the thin, matching plate. I also received the honor of washing the teapot, the sugar bowl, the teacups, the plates, begrudgingly handling them with the utmost precision to avoid knocking the ceramic butterfly off the teapot lid, even though it had been broken and glued back on at least three times by now. I never understood why some of the dishes were more special than others.

Now I am an adult, and my mother hosts tea parties for my little brothers on a biweekly basis. They sit at the kitchen table and take turns choosing the tea of the week, enjoying little wafers and pastries bought just for them while they read the Bible. The boys have teacups of their own, but my mother always uses the same one– white and simple, decorated with little strawberry leaves and gold accents. That teacup I hold now, split near-perfectly into two large pieces.

I apologize of course, carrying the broken pieces into the living room where my mother sits in her nest watching skincare videos on her phone. She doesn’t even take out an earbud, just glances at the two pieces and tells me with a straight face: “That was one of the teacups given to me by my grandmother and is probably one of my most prized possessions. Throw it away, I guess, it’s broken.”

“I’m sorry,” I say again, not knowing how else to respond. She continues looking me in the eyes, her expression neutral– blank even. Not a trace of tears or anger or upset.

“I’m not even being sarcastic,” she says. “It was special, and now it’s trash.”

I turn and walk back towards the kitchen while she hits play on her YouTube video. I make it halfway before I turn around and try again.

“Are you sure? Look, the two pieces fit together. You could use it to hold rings or something.”

It’s true. When you hold the pieces together the line between them is invisible, only a tiny chip or two indicating anything was amiss.

“I’m sure,” she says, probably annoyed I made her pause her video again. “That’s the teacup I used to drink out of and now it’s ruined, so just throw it away.”

I return to the kitchen and open the trash, but the two pieces of the teacup reflect the warm kitchen lights and wink back at me. It seems a shame to throw away something so beautiful and delicate, even if it is broken. Somehow I can’t bring myself to drop it into the garbage, to hear it chip as it makes contact with itself and breaks into even more pieces. I can hear my mother on the other end of the house, snapping at the little boys more than usual while they get ready for bed. I set the broken teacup on the counter and pick up my phone.

I’ve seen a video once of how they use gold to repair broken pottery. It had struck me how much work goes into something I thought had been so simple. Dip the broken pieces into melted gold and stick them together, right? Wrong. There were too many steps, none of which I could remember now. Sanders and epoxy and specialized tools and tiny paint brushes and layers upon layers of intense precision. But Simone is artsy and Emma has always been a do-it-yourself kind of gal. If anyone could fix it, it was my girls.

I leave the teacup on the counter and wash the rest of the dishes. I am careful not to knock over any other cups as I find my favorite pink mug pushed in the very back of the cabinet. It’s covered by all of the mugs my mother always claimed were special just for her– a narwhal, a forest of tiny foxes, a magenta Starbucks mug older than half my siblings. I drink my hot chocolate, which has since cooled almost to room temperature, in my bedroom while I text the girls. One of them says she can fix it. The other knows the exact word for the process– Kintsugi. Both agree this is a poem that writes itself. On the other side of the door, my mother yells at my brothers to stop talking to each other and go to sleep.

I return to the kitchen where the lights are dark and the countertop is empty, though it can’t have been more than five minutes since I left. Mom was missing from her spot on the couch, so I know she’s been here. I open the trash and sure enough there it is, both pieces lying next to each other and maybe a little more chipped than before, though perhaps it’s my imagination. I smuggle it back to my room, walking quickly and hiding it with my hands, but there is no one around to notice my contraband but my sister, noise-cancelling headphones on as she scrolls through memes, oblivious.

I doubt my mother will notice the teacup missing from the trash. She has not said a word about it since, and I suspect she won’t again until Thursday, when the disruption to her routine reminds her of its absence. I know how she will wait until I come home from work and walk past to tell my brothers that somebody broke her teacup so this is the new cup she’s drinking out of, and how a mug is not as fancy as a teacup, and can you really call it a tea party if everyone is drinking from a regular old ceramic mug, and how much she misses the teacup she always used to have.

And that will be the last anyone hears of my mother’s most “prized possession.”

speak, baachan

Aika Adamson

Do you have a boyfriend yet? baachan asks. Do you still work at the library? When will you come visit?

My answers never change: No. Yes. Soon.

It wouldn't matter if my answers changed. The questions remain, always new in baachan's mind, and my voice a record I play without thought. Distance grows.

When I am seven, baachan is steady and warm. She piles plate after plate in front of me. She feeds all her grandchildren, takes care to perfect each dish, makes sure we go to sleep with stomachs close to bursting. I don't know then, but she still carries the war in her body. Explosions ring in her ears and out there on a mountain is younger version of her hiding in a cave with her big sister. Her stomach is too empty to growl and though the trees outside are heavy with fruit, the poison they carry is too bitter to swallow. Her sister takes her by the hand and leads her outside at night. They crawl through the jungle, eyes fixed on the lights of a camp where U.S. soldiers put the day's fighting to rest. Two men set down canned food, the tops already peeled open, and talk loudly before walking away. Their backs are purposefully turned as baachan and her sister dart in like minnows and steal the only meal they'll have for the next two days. She will never put down that hunger.

You've grown up so much! baachan says. There is a smile in her voice. Tell me, do you have a boyfriend yet?

No, I answer. No boyfriend. I'm too busy to look for one.

At twelve years old, I spend my summer catching insects with my cousin and jumping into the ocean with the rest of my family. From the shore, baachan sits with the other adults, watching us play. I wonder if she sees in us her first children, now all grown up, carefree and unworried as Okinawa goes from American territory to Japanese. The humid heat is a comfort and cicada song fill our ears. We all tell stories, bits and pieces of our lives collected to be shared into the family's memory scrapbook during the summer. I notice now what I didn't notice then: baachan stays quiet, takes it all in, keeps her heavy stories close to her chest. The regret has come late; her memories have escaped her and there is no one now who can return them to her. The words are gone. What she carries is silence.

Do you still work at the library? Is it the one with your mom? baachan's mind twists things into knots. One connection to another until it twists and frays and snaps and we patiently tie it back together.

Yes, I'm working at the library, but at the university. Not the school my mom works. You work at a univeristy! That's wonderful. Does your mom work there too?

I bite back a sound; a laugh or a sigh, something that isn't tears because the time to cry is yet to come. No, I answer patiently. Mom works at an elementary school.

I am eighteen and I get the news that baachan is in the hospital. It was just a fall that hurt her hip. She will be fine and back on her feet in no time, but that doesn't change the fact that she has changed. Time is no longer gentle to her. Age wears down her mind. She got lost walking to the small shopping center down the street. She used to walk me down to the grocery store on the lower level, hand in hand, to buy me all my favorite foods. It hurts to know that the baachan who once went shopping with me is one I will never see again. The decline is fast after that; she regresses to a childlike state and forgets our faces, our names, the colorful life she lived, how her hands cooked and cared and carried a warmth no one can recreate.

She is slipping away too fast for anyone to catch. Still, I reach out for her.

When will you come visit? baachan asks. She has already asked this six times in this phone call.

The lie repeats itself again: Soon. I'll visit you soon.

The truth is this: I am scared of coming face to face with baachan and being confronted with a stranger. My mom goes in my stead, lets me hide behind her again, as if I never stopped by a small child. It's selfish of me, but I want the keep the baachan I remember alive in my head. I can't do that if I see her as she is now. The guilt eats at me just as much as the relief does. I let the oceans keep us apart and rely on short phone calls to let baachan know I still think of her. The same conversation goes on and on in circles, a man-made time loop I willingly place myself in. Same questions, same answers. Same baachan, for now.

It doesn't end. It doesn't end.

I am terrified for when it does.

Come to Okinawa soon! I will, baachan. I will.

Wife Beater Eulogy

Elizabeth Ellis

How are you gonna’ eulogize a wife beater? Obituaries claim that the deceased put up a “courageous fight.” Translation? “Don’t whine.” Battle death. Cowardice is not to “fight,” whatever that means. Homie don’t play. “Cancer don’t play,” a patient advocate said that. Cancer patients agree that using battle and courage terms are not helpful, realistic or appreciated. The schmaltz of excess sentimentality is not welcome.

A Mayo Clinic public service announcement claimed that blah-blah-blah has been linked to a greater risk of dying. Gee. News flash. That. Being born is a guaranteed risk of dying. Being. Death is a fact we act as if we can prevent. Death is a matter of when and how. Death is a Scratch-n-Go.

At the graveside I once yelled, “Be happy for her! It’s over! She was miserable. Unhappy!” Six years this dragged on, this trapped in the aegis of a stroke, unable to speak, walk, wipe herself, make meals, mosey out to the kitchen, live in her own home. As a teenager we worked in nursing homes and ran out the door at the end of our shift screaming, “I’m alive!” At his wife’s funeral a husband stood up and said four words, “She liked to shop.” He sat down. Do that to me and I’ll come back and bite you. I’ve had more fun in in the dentist chair. At one of these events the deceased’s son hoisted the urn above his head and walked it down aisle. I imagined it ending up in a back-yard garage sale someday. With cremation at least, we don’t have to hear, “He looked like himself.” (think Up in Smoke)

Obituaries read like a recipe for sainthood, but what to say when the town drunk dies? Recent obituaries suggest that only good people die, or that people are good when they die. Or that you have to die to be good, to relieve the people who hovered over you waiting for the anguish horror pain to be over.

For all the euphemisms there was one time I didn’t recognize the person I knew. Based on the eulogy hagiography is rampant. We eulogize in the terms we and apply to deceased persons. A list is handed over. “Choose some.” The words chosen reflect our values: kind hearted vs. cold, contributed vs. cheapskate, cultivated vs. simple, curious vs. apathetic.

We forgive in eulogies and obituaries. Someone once used the more apt word ‘salty’ to describe the deceased. That was honest, not denigrating. Whether the deceased was accomplished or defeated, successful or a failure, the survivors seek closure when the deceased can no longer speak for themself. The person is gone.

Was the deceased a hated ogre? a grumpy curmudgeon who alienated themself from everyone? Loved? Or hated? Cherished or despised? able to connect, or a poor sport. Associates will know the skinny, but choose not to say.

Assertive? or cowering. Stood his ground? or caved. Jealous and petty, kept to himself and veered off. Many things to all? or nothing to nobody. A mischievous tease or a pain to be around. Did they giggle or frown; find fun humor, and comfort. Spirited, or gloomy, a poor sport. Helper or never lent a hand; supportive or turn a blind eye, ran at the first sign of trouble. Treasured, or a relentless conniver who poked at the wound.

Hard-hearted and hot-headed, an irate lone wolf?    

A cold shouldered, moody, sour, penny pincher who scrimped to the extreme, or a friend. Faint of heart, a fearful fed up shallow gossip monger, or a mentor who never shriveled, a member who joined in, never squandering a chance to serve. Shared, or scrounged selfishly. Quiet? Or noisy, disruptive and vulgar. Humble? Or a smug conceited braggart. Impish and corny, or snooty. Intelligent, or dumb. Weak with cold feet.

Was the deceased a highly ethical pioneer who spearheaded projects for the greater good or a critical, rigid sap who squealed? An honest, honored someone to revere and remember, non-judgmental, or a minor leaguer? Never smug, spiteful, or spoilt, or Liar, liar pants on fire.

One of a kind, not plain, simple or ordinary, but unique who prided himself. His story worth remembering. Neither shabby nor reviled? Or sour breath and dirty fingernails, with mustard on his shirt whose motto was “What’s in it for me?”

How are you gonna’ eulogize a wife beater? Whatcha’ gonna’ say? Will sinners be missed? Please don’t eulogize me. No time for honesty.  

I went to a cemetery yesterday. No one spoke to me there. No one gets hurt.