Super Mercado Lee Hou, and My Tata, My Li Po

Abstract

Super Mercado Lee Hou, and My Tata, My Li Po Brandon Som (bio) Super Mercado Lee Hou Rather than a Chinatown, it looks like a rundown street where a few Chinese have dropped anchor, orphans of imperial dragons, thousand-year-old recipes, and mysteries. —Rafael Bernal, The Mongolion Conspiracy Amid the aisles of fideode huevo, de arroz,hongo negro, shitake,crisanemos, pétalo de lili,& clavo chino— I rememberedhow her apron pocketskept a box-cutter,how she bagged Mad Dog& Wild Turkey,or wrapped precisely—like a gift—a pig's foot in wax paper.In DF on Dolores Streetin barrio chino, south of SouthPhoenix, Chinese grocers—immigrants unassimilableto the mixing in mestizaje—sell spices & ingredients.Curios too—palillos chinos,ceramic conejos, dragónsde oro—like those in Borges'compendium of imagined beasts—saddled by kings, the maincourse of emperors—& besidethem were sobres rojos,the lai see she wrote my Chinesename on with a gung hayfat choy, slipping inside goodluck money. With handsthat punched at a register— [End Page 8] one-fingered like plantingseed in soil—those sheer handswith barrettes or earwigspulled from the day's lettuce—she wrote the strokesthat mirrored the thinnessof hand bones. I didn't knowthe characters or luckbought with their slice & sweep,the spines of their firstmademarks. On envelopesin ball-point, the nameI couldn't sign but signed memarked moon-phased& moon-based New Yearin script that stayed ellipses& recorded the paidbefore I knew the received. On market signsin Sharpie & Spanishnaming the "Products of China,"we might read stevedoreson galleons, coolies of empire,how the Chinese camefor centuries to Big Lusong.Their descendants soldsundries in the 1930sin copper towns of Sonorabefore they were run outby ordinance, by anti-chinoviolence. At the same moment,under Hoover & so-calledrepatriation, federal & stateagents searched payrollsfor Mexican-sounding names,executing large-scale raidsthat deported over a millionMexican & Mexican Americans.Could I sign my namethat crossing, that chiasmusof exile or simply sharea night's receipts—its archive [End Page 9] of salditos, pack of Pall Malls,tins of potted meat? An IOU &salt's cure, the longhandshe learned in a village schoolhouse—long they say for long life,long as glass noodles—keepssound & stores meaning,writing in the margins or corners,those tienditas a la esquinawhere paths meet or knotlike cut rope or twist like thosefigures of dragons. "Inscrutable,"Borges writes of their infiniteshapes, & yet goes on in detailabout claws, horns & scales,their large horse-like heads& snaking tail, the medicinaluses of their teeth, how they keepa pearl chained to their necks,& broil "whole shoals of fish"with one breath, how one moveslike a river rising from earth,backbone bristling with spines. [End Page 10] My Tata, My Li Po The poems, then, are those of a man who in the eyes of a society largely dominated by bureaucratic values had completely failed in his career or rather had failed to have a career at all. —Arthur Waley Li Po of loppers, extension cords, & carpenter's pants—hammer's claw snug in its loop. Li Po of roach clips,porno mags, his Ziplock of batteries. Li Po licking each nipple to test its charge. Li Po of Thunderbird,of Night Train—winito stash—in the piñon's knotholefor his night-sips. Li Po of Korean War—I joined to see the world, he once said, but they sent meto Albuquerque. He learned his drink in basic training,Nana says. Li Po of government checks, of Hohokam acequias instead of any Yangtze. Li Po of swollenknuckles from nuns' rulers for speaking his Spanish.Li Po of turn around & net snap. Li Po of S-hooks where crescent wrenches hung like caught fish.Li Po of cuidados & chingados. The rasquache Li Poof cochinero, of makeshift. Li Po of Saltillo tiles, terracotta—tierra mia—awaiting square feet.Li Po, who quizzed me, call & response, Do you...