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to take my chances and live life over,

and be me, beyond a photograph.

FALLING, CALLE ORIZABA

—Mexico City

1.

Before I look, I test aceras with a rubber foot.

sidewalks

A glass leg extends from the street and comes to a hook my hand handles.

Me: a doorstop guffaws over planks of hardwood.

Each step, the arms of a clock tilt closer and closer towards noon.

2.

Once I shook my foot loose from a hueco in the asfalto.

pothole

Once I shook my foot and it twinkled like a burned-out fuse.

Once I shook my breath loose inside my lungs and heard the ball-bearing’s timbal.

Once I shook on a curb, in darkness.

3.

Then the filaments of the woozy harp tolled the doorbell.

Then, she held the stringy cheeks of my purpling palms.

I dialed up my feelings: my fingers wound numbers around the rotary phone’s spindle.

Okay. This is me now: her hip bumps the table and the red in the wineglass bumbles.

In the bath, my belly button breathes when it comes to the surface.

A knock in the soapy water is just a heartbeat calling.

WHAT I DON’T TELL MY CHILDREN ABOUT THE PHILIPPINES

—Lingayen Beach, 1977

I don’t tell lies. Memory’s more

beautiful than truth. So I say,

the air was blossoming jasmine trees

and smoke. And it’s true.

Clothes boiled in tin tubs. A child,

I watched my uncle splinter

arms of bamboo, his dark skin a blur

in steamy drizzle. A woman

with the burning end of a cigarette

turned inside her lips. Her smile,

a mouth of pink gums squeezed

together. Mornings, my brother and I

raced down the soft belly of the beach,

climbed palm trees—grasping circular rungs

like a throat—to see coconuts churning

in the surf; the skeleton of a torn-down

fighter plane, its snapped propellers,

dented cockpit; fire holes on the beach

where my family came down at night

Dad drank San Miguels and never quit

talking. Filipinos laughed at him.

Mom sat, embarrassed, in the sand.

My cousins, brother, and I stripped cane.

The story ends there for children,

but you wait in bed to hear the rest—

how the air was steam, mosquito incense.

Auntie Marietta set the table. Lanterns

turned her skin red/blue.

I sat in the clubhouse watching

old men play pool till one said

I look old enough to kiss.

GLOVE

[She] knocks, saying ‘Open for me, my [sister], my love, my dove, my perfect one’…My love thrust [her] hand through the opening, and my feelings were stirred for [her].

—Song of Solomon 5: 2–4, from Christiansex.com/fist

She pinches at

the rough seams

where the glove

brows into fingertips

and as she

tugs each digit

the leather tube

suctions flat and

the bottom of

the glove cinches

a cuff around

her thumb-bone

where it angles

into her wrist.

So, the glove,

now, looks like

skin unraveled from

the spokes of

her fingers, or

a bat’s wing

as it catches

wind and launches

from the bone’s

knuckly masthead. Then,

freeing the butt

of her palm

from the glove,

she flexes her

hand’s muscly cheeks

together, skin compressed

so—folded, gullying—

love lines root

in her palm

(the likes only

her lover knew

from slipping on

the bike gloves

she keeps hidden

in the bureau’s

top drawer, leather

wilted and milky

from their smallish

hands over-fingering

the throttle’s stiff,

rubber grip). With

her fingers relaxed

she withdraws her

dewy hand from

the glove’s untapered

back end, spray

of polyester hairs

and must filling

the space between

her face and

her slick skin.

Then, she sets

the gloves down

open ends against

the table where

they stand-up,

each empty nook

having trapped just

enough air for

the bulbs of

skin to appear

natural and improbable

as found sculpture.

How much like

a pianist’s utensils

the hands trained

to relax into

near perfect cradles

when she wants

to believe that

the leather’s briefed

by her unmannered

or, somehow, unrehearsed

touching. Still warm,

the gloves pose

like their very

own living tissues

keep them up,

the molded leather

surrendering the rest