Names Above Houses

What Fidelito Knows of His Father

60 What Fidelito Knows of His Father Domingo Recto’s head was the sun On the shoulders of the Pacific, A stone shorn by riptide, A buoy on the curl of a great breaker. His eyes took in the sea Like green anemones, took in The sea like the curve of a dune, An archipelago torn by tsunami. His nostrils were bellows, Swirl of a whirlpool, His nostrils were full sails. When Domingo spoke, his lips Curled thunderheads, when he spoke, His lips the wash of spume on sand, The shawls of whitecaps tossed by wind. His chest the weight of a galleon, The weight of a piano crate lost At sea, chest like a rusted junk Full of drunks far from shore. His arms the shafts of shovels, arms Like rails along decks that keep Sailors from sea, his arms were knotted Ropes holding a tattered sail. Domingo’s hands were cracked clay Jars holding rain, a flour sack On top of a mast, purple sea urchins Opened by otters. 61 His fingers were like oarlocks, Domingo’s fingers were tossed Branches on wave crests, Palm fronds rocked from treetops. Domingo Recto had a waist Like the steerage of a slave ship, A waist like the husk of an abalone, Five cannons aimed at shore. His left leg, crippled In a shipping accident, his one Good leg was the pivot of a compass, His one leg, the star that points True north, the one skid of a Catamaran, Domingo’s left leg was the tail of an eel. His right leg, the odd dwarf of a family, A tree trying to root on sand, A life raft with no survivors, Domingo’s right leg was a sailor’s log With missing pages. This is what I know of my father, The chronicle of sea and salt leeched Through his skin, the eye That looks through me As through an oncoming wave. I was the blue-lighted Horizon that pulled him not to land, But to the slight curve of the ocean. ...