USA

rkaparo@implicity.com

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China

An angler intent on his line, leaning
his weight on one hand against the moat.
Behind him, bails of straw, a wall of stone, the Forbidden City.

He stares into black water and time swallows itself,
the lesser days and the eons. His life
a reflection against the surface of this water.
A leaf falls, shatters the dream, drifts away.

But no, I am mistaken, there are no trees,
only the stone wall, the color of burnt amber.
A stone wall dividing the man
from the boy.
Darkness lies thick.

On this day earth wraps its legs around darkness
and is lifted like a child to a kiss.


(originally published in
Poetry USA, Oakland, CA, issue #22, (1991, Spring)

Shorn

You were weary.
Two colicky babies then the unwanted pregnancies
and one you couldn’t abort.
Your hand grasping her skinny wrist
tugging arm from shoulder.
She would not budge from that sidewalk.
A single act of defiance
on Laurelton Boulevard
that chilly Saturday morning.
Do with her what you will.
She will not
give in.

Moments before
While you spoke through the mirror
she disappeared from herself.
Even the barber’s leathery hand,
prying her tiny chin from chest
so you could admire such a cute pixie,
was washed clean by tears.

The floor a graveyard:
trampled manes and tails,
wild beasts crushed underfoot.

Having prevailed
you lit your cigarette
leaning against the barbershop window
to rest sore feet before the long walk
even in your comfortable shoes.
The scolding, the razored flecks of hair,
for her own good.

Other mothers scurried by
yanking the arm leash of children.

Your threats – giving her something to really cry about –
couldn’t dam her tears.
They washed over bands of your Indian burns,
bracelets of defiance replacing a kindergartner’s pride.

Until bangs curtained her eyes
weeks went by.
Not showers nor sleep nor school
not even the shame-weakened muscles of her neck
parted that pixie head from brother’s football helmet.

Mother, I am she
that wild beast
caught and captive.
Never attempting escape.
Even when the cage opens.
No longer believing
freedom.

Salad

Lured to our garden by the smell of ripe tomatoes
my daughter follows with questions on marriage.
We place some pickings in the basket and cross the path
to greens. Tearing off a few leaves—our fingers
approach each plant as one might a stranger,
asking permission, expressing
gratitude. This my daughter knows without asking.

Leaves fall like petals into the basket.
Arugula, butter leaf, radicchio, tat sai, red leaf, romaine.
The plants guide our hands.
Rosemary, oregano, cilantro, parsley, green onion.
Outside, rinsing greens, she returns
worms to soil.
Inside we crush garlic, cover herbs
with oil pressed from the heart of Tuscany and vinegar
aged slowly in flasks of five woods
before joining such fragrance. This vinegar,
the farmer explained, makes most seem worthy
of washing floors. Then the peppercorns.
White, green, red, black. Uncertain
how much to grind, my daughter asks.
She pours this aromatic mixture into a large wooden bowl,
coats it in spirals
bottom to top.

I sharpen the knife to glide through tomatoes.
Float them in liquid gold. Into the bowl
we fluff leaves like feathers.
She catches one
with flecks of earth.
Stops.
Looks through them all again,
returns some to the basin. Then the grasses.
Buckwheat and sunflower.
My daughter is reminded by my breathing
not to rush.
She is learning how to toss salad
working her fingers
the way she might lift a butterfly
without harming wings.

Now some feta lightly sprinkled. The sprouts.
Adzuki, radish, chickpea, mung, clover.
She decorates the bowl with nasturtiums.
As we set the table her questions roll in with the tide.
Would you tell me more about marriage?

You already know what matters.

How can I? I’m only a kid.


You touched the plants gently,
blending without sacrifice
the uniqueness of each one’s gift.
And you didn’t pretend
to know everything
or try to cover your mistakes.

(originally published in Manzanita Quarterly Literary Review, (Autumn, 2001)
vol 4, #1)

The Legacy
for Bubba & Zaida

The smell of rotting leaves and white ginger
rose pungent off rain-damp streets
past mown fields edged purple with bougainvillea
and seeing a hyacinth
red as the lipstick that stained my cheeks when last I saw her
I found my dead Bubba again
sitting on a wooden bench threading three purls
and one knit into a band of blue

Before they removed the tumor from her brain
Bubba baked a wooden barrel full of rougalah
just in case
She flew to California a week later
to greet her newest grandchild
before the surgeons could graft a plate to her skull
a flap of skin separating brain from sky
a gypsy scarf, red and gold, widening
and narrowing to her cerebral pulse

Years later
I visited her in hospital again, eyes glazed
from electric shock, drugs
her dressing gown drooping off one shoulder
back exposed
her wit and humor, that unmistakable belly laugh
irrepressible

No one knew why, but in the kitchen
while borscht and simmering onions sweetened the scent of liver
rising off the stove, Bubba chased Zaida around the table
the chopping knife clenched in her knotted fist

I walked past the drooling figures that lined the visiting room
to tell Bubba I got engaged. Don't give yourself away
She whispered when we were finally alone
When you're my age and can't spread your legs anymore
they treat you like shit

Three husbands later, I took Bubba’s name
Not when she died, but years after
breaking bread with my Aunties
I heard how Bubba was sent to the city at twelve
one less mouth to feed
in the war torn Romania that killed her father

While her mother tilled the farm
working as a blacksmith
to shelter four other children
Bubba served as cook and chambermaid
a well-to-do uncle having his way with her

That night, for the first time, I heard Bubba’s name
not the name stamped on her papers at Ellis Island
her ebony eyes buoyant with hope
all that mattered folded neatly in one suitcase

Not Weiner, Itzkiwitz, or Zuckor
nor any other name
Bubba’s mother stole
like a crust of bread to keep her boys alive
each time the draft found them
She was born to the name
Kaparo, from the Hebrew to forgive
a sacrifice for atonement

Soon after I took Bubba’s name
fire purged what remained of my life
the framed relief of a shtetel kitchen
she sent to me when they closed the house in Flatbush
where she raised five children with broken English
where I whiled many a childhood hour
the package filled with rougalah
Ash to ash

All that I have of my Bubba
I give to my daughter
her name
her history

Blades

Through the blurred tabla and flight of ragas
seeing without sense the hundred faces
scattered over tables, waiters darting in pandemonium
like birds scavenging the streets of Calcutta.
A little girl nearby, hair of winter weed and wet
charcoal eyes, her glance piercing through frantic voices.
She watches the magic of my pen drawing lines that speak.

Could she know my loneliness and tonight's vacant sleep?
The sitar's moan, my own intoxication.
It is barren between two worlds. I could almost prefer
a betrayer's touch,
his hands pinning down my arms, unloosing
his cum between swollen lips. I would almost prefer this

abused awakening.
More than once, you held the knife like an oracle
Pointing the way.
Now it is I who must drive the blade
and your old heart beating.
It does not cease easily,
this resilient blood habit.

How the ritual goodbye took comfort
from my never leaving. Always you would wake
to me beneath the fine limbed maple, and beside me
slip into the dream of our forgetting.
Now I must enter a different solitude.
I must walk on that dirt road
past all the times I have left before--
and not
return.

© All Copyright, Risa Kaparo.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.