“itʻs a matter of faith,” you used to say.
a very late response to May Prompt: Faith by Terijo for Intricate Intimacies
itʻs the day after
your body:
i’ve signed the papers
i never saw it before;
you never showed it,
only shadows shining light
practice is a funny thing:
never touch the keys
hoping for a symphony
the anger is gone
yours and mine:
requiem, pace
The City and County apparently cited your property because it is overrun with weeds, a neighborhood nuisance, a vector threat. I tell the man that youʻre dead, and i have no idea how to find the will, trust, keys, or anything, that iʻm on disability, that thereʻs no family left but me. The C&C guy softens, gives me twenty days to rectify the situation, before a fine starts collecting for every day out of compliance. I guess he figures a woman whoʻs clearly mentally off can only do so much, and cuts me some slack.
i hated those days you dragged me out of my books, off the piano, to pull weeds, trim bougainvillea, mow grass, cut down whatever you told me to, tie it up, and drag it, like a corpse, to the curb. my skin would erupt — it still does — in reaction to the grass, their irritant needles, stress, or some combination of all the above and then some. but all the skills i learned, i kept. and your machete. your, i donʻt know, sixty year-old, machete. and i file it as i hack through the overgrowth that threatens my nonexistent bank account.
I never wanted to be like you: abusive, hypocritical, abusive, self-righteous, abusive, angry, abusive, ungrateful, abusive, insensitive, oh, and did I mention, oh shit, I forgot what I meant to say.
I rejected what your ethnicity and adopted culture, your banana white bread, wanna-be white upper-middle class, cishetero patriarchal non-practicing Catholic in chinese yellow skin represented,
“. . . because i don’t speak Hakka, or Punti, or Cantonese, or Mandarin, and i don’t eat chicken’s feet, and i don’t want to grow up to be a yard woman or house keeper in a hotel. . . because i went to college and got a Master’s Degree in Education after pre-Med . . . because i want to be an actress . . .”
When you didnʻt show up for over a week to hack away at my native Hawaiian garden, I wondered what was up. I left messages on your phone for three days — unusual, since you almost always picked up my calls as i left a message, or called me back before the end of the day. Finally the Resident Manager let me into your apartment — we had to get a locksmith. you never gave me a key into your apartment. or your life, for that matter. He said to wait, heʻd go in first, the resident manager said. a minute later he returned.
“Heʻs gone,”
he said.
“yeah, my grandmother ran a shop and my father gathered firewood. but he became a civil engineer. and no, he never hired a yardman, always doing it, doing everything on his own — sometimes crappy, sometimes pretty damn good.
and yeah now he’s gone and took our shitty relationship with him. and of all the tools left that he let me try, let me use, criticize me and scold me and berate me and hit me and ignore me for, there’s only this proly 60-year-old machete left.”
I found a Bible on the bookshelf next to your bed, a couple of feet from where you collapsed. I still have the Bible I found on the hallway bookshelf in our old home. You never went to church, never prayed (at least, not in front of me). You used language that would have put a Marine drill sergeant to shame. But you did send me to Catholic parochial school, presumably to make a “man” out of me. (I guess you failed. I transitioned.)
I remember our argument about President Obama, how you saw him as a threat to all that is good and great. Like “Merry Christmas”. versus “Happy Holidays”. And how youʻll always say “Merry Christmas,” because Christmas is about Christ and the Virgin Mary. Wow. We had that argument when I was something like fifty years old. Only then did I realize that somewhere deep inside you, a Catholic soul resided. And then that Bible on the hallway bookshelf in our old home made sense. No wonder you never mentioned your mother when that huge black moth appeared at the window after her funeral. Nothing Catholic about that.
and i’ll file it sharp myself, sometimes shitty, sometimes pretty damn good.
and i’ll take care of the yard he left behind when his 91 year old chinese body just had enough of our shitty relationship and a long productive life.
and i’ll sharpen that old machete.
sometimes shitty,
sometimes, maybe
pretty damn good.
I try to find my anger. Itʻs there, somewhere. But something else too. I donʻt want your soul tormented. I put on Mozart. K. 626.
Requiem.
I light some incense, recite a sutra, say nembutsu for you.
namo Amida Butsu.
namo Amida Butsu.
namo Amida Butsu.
Requiem aeternam.
overgrown, the grass;
stings my chest:
a sickle works best
black moth fluttering:
i try to lead you outside.
soft, cat’s mourning gift
