Bird Eating Bird_ Poems - Kristin Naca [1]
THE CINCINNATI REVIEW: “Heart Like a Clock”
CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW: “Uses for Spanish in Pittsburgh”
HARPUR PALATE: “Baptism,” “In the Time of the Caterpillars”
INDIANA REVIEW: “Todavía no,” “Not Yet”
THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW: “What I Don’t Tell My Children about the Philippines”
OCHO: THE MiPOesias PRINT JOURNAL COMPANION: “Speaking English Is Like,” “Glove,” “Adoration at El Montan”
PINOY POETICS: A COLLECTION OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL ESSAYS ON FILIPINO AND FILIPINO AMERICAN POETICS: “Language Poetry / Grandma’s English”
OCTOPUS: “House”
PRAIRIE SCHOONER: “Ode to Glass,” “One Foot,” “Las Meninas / The Maids of Honor,” “Rear Window,” “Witness”
RIO GRANDE REVIEW: “Speaking Spanish Goes Like This”
RIO GRANDE REVIEW ONLINE: “Catching Cardinals”
Her Spanish sounds like sunlight drying a wet shirt.
And in the process, I’ve grown fond of her.
She’s delicadeza, a word that names her nature.
Whose dream deepens in the rain? Whose hair is lilacs?
—Eugene Gloria
SPEAKING ENGLISH IS LIKE
Brown and beige and blonde tiles set in panels of tile across the bathroom floor.
Wakes curled into the pavement by traffic, the asphalt a slow, gray tide.
A loose floorboard hiding the gouges chunked out of the floor.
Tawny red curtains hamstrung in the quick, morning light.
Her body oils like sage in a shirt, in the bed sheets.
Pigeons on a line and in the gutters.
The staple that misfires and jams the hammer.
The tender, black wick at the top of a candle’s waxy lip.
The lonely woman secretly dying her curtains red at the Laundry Factory.
The purple and purple-blue berry sacks tethered to a blackberry rind.
Branches lolled by the weight of voluminous, tender sacks.
The path along the lake lit up with the pitch of purple stars.
Mouthfuls of lavender at the height of August.
Her lips, red gathering in the creases when she puckers.
Endings that are dirty tricks and also feathers.
Red water out the pipes, teeming from the rusty gutters.
The curtain flicker in the leafy, August breeze.
The ghostly cu-cu echoing through the purple night, under stars.
TODAVÍA NO
Los pedazos de la lengua quedan tan gordos y abultados como flores.
Dime, árbol. Son los que están allá solamente ramas desnudas y alguna corteza.
Todavía no, no hay palabras para hacer capas de piel sobre la primavera.
El color verde se difumina sin leaves.
El único pájaro que aterriza allí es el halcón.
En el espejo, el reflejo de su pelo es castañas labradas.
Las venas de la cala están labradas con paredes. No, piedras. No, pérdidas.
Mientras tanto, tus manos están hechas de nudillos y hechas de piel.
En la ventana, el cristal se superpone al árbol desnudo afuera.
Sin fingernails, solamente clavos. Los dedos-garras. Los dedos-lanzas, dice ella.
La ropa en la cama está limpia y suelta.
La mujer en la cama espera no morir mientras duerme…despierta…despierta.
El halcón la aguada en el árbol desnudo, más allá de la ventana, más allá de los muros.
La canción del pájaro superpone a la noche despejada, la deja despierta.
Todavía no, todas las canciones que canta, le da de comer al halcón.
Todas las noches que espera ella, le da de comer a la muerte.
NOT YET
The nubs of the tongue sit fat and bulky as flowers.
Say, tree. What’s there but bare branches and some bark.
No words for putting layers of skin on spring yet.
Green glows loose without its leaves.
The only bird that lands there is the falcon.
In the mirror, the reflection of her hair is carved chestnuts.
The veins of the creek encrusted with walls. No, stones. No, losing.
Meanwhile your hands are made of knuckles and made of skin.
In the window, glass overlaps the naked tree outside.
No fingernails, just the nails. Finger-claws. Finger-swords, she says.
The laundry on the bed is clean and limp.
The woman in her bed hopes she doesn’t die in her sleep…wake up…wake up.
The falcon waits for her in the naked tree, beyond the window, beyond the walls.
The small