The Same
I want to tell
the little Chinese women
with the loud voices
to sit beside each other
so they don't shout
across the subway car,
over my head,
shattering
my space.
I offer my seat.
The lady with the
short-cropped perm
red as a rooster's comb
in a Chinese market
gives me a toothy grin
the essence of onions, garlic
shakes her head
from side to side like a
tai chi exercise, no, no, no
as if to say, “I may shop in Costco
wear jeans, a North Face down jacket
but you'll never
make me a Westerner,
won't drop
my Chinese voice
a single decibel
to suit you and your
Anglo-silence on subway cars
as if they were chapels
or private property.”
I hear my grandmother's
staccato Calabrese vowels
clang against brick walls
in an alleyway in Queens
with the same defiance,
the same pride
the same sorrow to be in America.
Lovestuck
I jog to the Borghese Gardens,
pass the zoo's balding creatures
bound up the steps
to Cardinal Scipione's Galleria,
catch a glimpse
of the Bernini sculptures
assuming their positions
on pedestals
in time to gape
at us studying them.
They've returned breathless
from a Bacchanalian feast,
careful not to stain
their marble bodies with blood rich wine.
I imagine Apollo rushing Daphne
who will never be caught
in her desire to stay pure and free.
Like nosey neighbors,
the sculptures follow the drama,
throw their heads back,
recall yesterday's spectators
peering up Apollo's crotch
wrapped by Daphne's fingers
metamorphosed into laurel leaves
that clutch the warmest part
of his smooth, marble body
staking her claim forever.
Empty Chairs
In the name of the father
and of the son, but what of
the daughters, sisters, mothers?
It's an Italian woman's trick
to look just so, ears sealed.
Like a bitter clerk
you tally your inventory
of grievances that never age.
Your discontent starts with
the women of this house.
Your woes echo
on the cold enamel kitchen table.
Over veal cutlets and salad,
biscotti, espresso,
wine from the cellar.
Our father no longer speaks,
crawls from bed to table
to couch, eyes and ears alert.
Orphan, farmer, father,
You nail him for his biggest crime—
failing to measure success in dollars.
Your chilling condemnations
insipid, duplicitous, vain—
sisters who cannot be trusted.
And their progeny are suspect.
Only you gave birth to a prince.
We are the serfs who dance
to the beat of our father's pain,
Take notes when doctors lie,
wash fecal-spattered sheets,
count the place settings,
remove the empty chairs.