Diaspora Sonnets

Abstract

Diaspora Sonnets Oliver de la Paz (bio) Diaspora Sonnet 53 The air by the docks smells like old batteriesand the moon rises through with its judgment, floods the swale above the scene and makes everythingsharp-edged. The shadows of forms more knife-like. Each boat’s prow a scythe steadily rocking,moored and clean. The sides rub the docks, suggesting a longing that is mild but constant.Some of us lose our words for such beauty. The cold and the light and the air’s insistence on uscatching our breaths having travelled on such boats and their willful enterprise to “wherever she takes me.”The divine and stuporous words we tell ourselves climbing out of the boats’ bodies—the rainbowedfilm on waters beyond our vision. [End Page 102] Diaspora Sonnet 55 Broth of boiled cloth and acid hands, knucklesraw from wringing suds and swinging denim by fistfuls up and out of the basin. Grimeof steam and grease stains blotted out. Rows of hangers on garment conveyors marchingshirt after shirt garnished in plastic and the heat from the press to flatten out collars and sleeves.In a different country I might have been royalty. That glow of my skin in the heat, a hidden sealon an envelope. I live in a republic of hangers. I let the fabrics warm my blistered skin. I letthe presses rejoice in silks and the seersucker blazer. Inside the roar of the dryer, I can shoutmy name, perfect, sequined, and neatly pressed. [End Page 103] Diaspora Sonnet 56 Those fishbones on a platter, sucked clean. Moreskeletal than sheen—blue porcelain plates with fishbones. On a white plate, the dishlooks all bone. In times of famine and no fish at all an empty plate can be allcolors. Small contingencies of fact are fact. The fat from the eye is/was the sweetmeat. The fried fin, eaten also. The mind leaves nothing but numb and rind, or sometimesmemories of rind. A remembered whole— empty platters—no rice for the bowl. Whiteplates bought on thrift can clatter when stacked up like decks of cards. Blue plates in the sink soakgrease. The fat from frying leaves its ghost trace. [End Page 104] Diaspora Sonnet 57 How best to live your current life? Meadowsopen into other meadows. The past creases itself into smaller and smaller blankets. Outsidethe hills are yielding mysteries to snow. I’ve questioned days where nothing can be puttogether into interlocking edges. I’ve questioned weeks where I’ve seen my father wanderfrom home to home inside the space of a room. How best to live your current life, you ask?Road maps and gas. Packing just enough to change from one dry shirt to another. To have enoughchange for a shower and a side-road shelter. And then the time to fill the dashes on the asphaltwith the cursive of your name, neat as yellow paint. [End Page 105] Diaspora Sonnet 58 This boat is quickly filling with ghosts. Long black hairhangs from their mossy heads. They’ve got no eyes I see. They wait in kitchens with empty bowls. They goup the stairs and down again. They are themselves a tide. When I part the curtains they are cut in half, dazzled intoshapes cast by the sunlight. Crosses against their chests, they dine and wheeze past all the window seamswe’ve sealed with tape. They still whistle. They still ring the doorbell and set the oven timer to announcetheir cursive contrails. Fog down the halls. Writing on the mirror. A spin of the dial in the car and I knowcandles burn to end their wicks. Guardrails hold me to the road. This body—their bodies move their shoesin bitten steps. Paths hewn in broken compass roses. [End Page 106] Diaspora Sonnet 59 Father refreshes the browser. The ruler’sface stretched into yawn. His jeweled incisor winks as the camera panspast him toward the crowd. Hands waving as the bodies turn and facethe cordoned bleachers. Confetti and lace careening down the promenade like hail...