Drawing Water, and: History Lesson, and: Fosters Freeze

Drawing Water

Picture if you will Tony Hoaglandand me, he in his Donkey Gospelhat and me wearing my Hustle ring,in his car patched with silver ducttape and sagging passenger mirrorsdiscussing vehicles as metaphorsfor systems, as waxen images oftranscendence,          while he recklessly                 bends corners of potholedHouston streets, clutching thesteering wheel so tightly                    as if it were the futureof American poetry. This is whereit gets complicated and awkward.                                    Not complicatedas in father twists his fannypack as he leans forward to kiss yourforehead complicated, but just slightlyawkward because he says,                                    no dawg, you which                  really isn't the uncomfortable                  part. It's that we've lostsomething                   between us, mostly weight,him getting sick and me getting     healthy. We have talked about "TheChange." He has taken onehand of the wheel                          to gently tap my kneeand then brush upthose Van Gogh trees hecalls hair. The labyrinthis someone's home. All men are                          part boogie. Whathe tells me cannot ft in a poem,his words no longer light enoughto lift out my chest.

History Lesson

I imagined us a nationbecause our housewas our corner of the world.

Of course, it wasyour house, and my world.

Remember when those twolarge paintings arrived?

I was so scared. Insidethose boxes were all yourconspiracies. How secretive

I was, agent against history,the newest New Yorker

in New Mexico, revoltingagainst a past that wasn't

mine, scoffing at Santa Fe,struggling to understandits dust, so unimpressedby its art collectors and its

architecture. It's hard tohike in Hender Scheme,not to scuff heels

in hills. What's in the atticbut a vacuum-packedsubconscious, a few

moldy berries of memory,a few buried Members Onlyjackets. Let us not keepthe cellar full of boxes

untouched. Let us not keepthe paintings of Indians hidden.

Fosters Freeze

For a genealogy assignment I took a blood test. I found out I am O positive. My mom is A negative, which seems very fitting. My dad is B positive. This alone would normally frighten me. Needles should freeze in hell. I told my dad I was scared but wouldn't cry when I got pricked. He laughed, pinched my arm. Oh, positive. After this, many things became apparent.

Like, I'm adopted. That is what my teacher said. Actually she said, You should talk to your parents. My parents, or at least the people that identify as such, went to Hawaii last summer and brought me home a matching shirt-and-short set. We spoke on the phone twice while they were gone. Despite the complaints from my mom, I wore the outfit everyday for two weeks until my cousin said the pattern looked like dicks exploding.

Whatever. My mom says the scheme is autumnal. And palm trees. My cousin is just jealous because her dad doesn't live with her. My mom thinks her mom is a slut, that she absolutely has patterns. They are sisters. Grandma cried at Christmas after my mom saw a picture of her real dad for the first time. She was thirty. He was flexing in cutoffs next to dumbbells in prison. Oh, positive. I'm pretty sure sluts don't

get to ride on planes. My grandparents said not to talk in the movies. I've heard my uncles say that, too. Once we skipped school to watch the second Star Wars, then again to see Fatal Attraction. Oh, positive. Davey, cover your eyes, they said, chichis. An upset child can go anywhere, except a plane, my grandpa said, but he's not my blood.

I asked my mom if that made me a slut while getting dinner at Fosters Freeze. She said that wasn't polite. I'm still not sure if she meant the waitress or the sluts. My dad said men can't be sluts. Oh, positive. I sucked hard on my Twister. Looking into my straw...