No Matter the Wreckage Read online
No Matter the Wreckage
© Sarah Kay 2014; interior illustrations © Sophia Janowitz 2014
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be used or performed without written consent from the author, except for critical articles or reviews.
Kay, Sarah
First edition
ISBN: 978-1-938912-48-1
Cover art by Anis Mojgani
Proofread by Philip McCaffrey
Edited by Derrick Brown, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, and Jan Kawamura-Kay
Interior illustrations by Sophia Janowitz
Interior layout by Ashley Siebels
Type set in Bergamo from www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com
Printed in Tennessee, USA
Write Bloody Publishing
Austin, TX
Support Independent Presses
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To contact the author, send an email to [email protected]
MADE IN THE USA
NO MATTER THE WRECKAGE
NO MATTER THE WRECKAGE
I.
LOVE POEM #137
SUBWAY
THE OAK TREE SPEAKS
THE TOOTHBRUSH TO THE BICYCLE TIRE
NEW YORK, JUNE 2009
THE FIRST POEM IN THE IMAGINARY BOOK
MRS
II.
MONTAUK
MY PARENTS ON THEIR WAY HOME FROM A WEDDING
SLIVERS
BROTHER
HANDS
III.
JELLYFISH
EVAPORATE
THE LADDER
BRICKLAYER
FOREST FIRES
POPPY
SOMETHING WE DON’T TALK ABOUT, PART I
DRAGONS
HAND-ME-DOWNS
IV.
SHOSHOLOZA
INDIA TRIO
JETLAG
PAWS
THE SHIRT
BOOM
GRACE
V.
UNTIL
SCISSORS
SOMETHING WE DON’T TALK ABOUT, PART II
THE MOVES
POSTCARDS
HIROSHIMA
VI.
EXTENDED DEVELOPMENT
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
LOOSE THREADS
PRIVATE PARTS
ANOTHER MISS ING
THE CALL
FLIGHT
VII.
B
AND FOUND
WINTER WITHOUT YOU
COREY’S TURN
WITNESS
YOLK
ACCIDENTS
VIII.
PEACOCKS
ON BEING PREPARED
ON THE DISCOMFORT OF BEING IN THE SAME ROOM AS THE BOY YOU LIKE
HERE AND NOW
OPEN
A PLACE TO PUT OUR HANDS
TODAY’S POEM
IX.
GHOST SHIP
LIGHTNING
THE TYPE
ASTRONAUT
THE PARADOX
IN THE EVENT OF AN EMERGENCY
NOTES
CREDITS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
LOVE POEM #137
I will wake you up early
even though I know you like to stay through the credits.
I will leave pennies in your pockets,
postage stamps of superheroes
in between the pages of your books,
sugar packets on your kitchen counter.
I will Hansel and Gretel you home.
I talk through movies.
Even ones I have never seen before.
I will love you with too many commas,
but never any asterisks.
There will be more sweat than you are used to.
More skin.
More words than are necessary.
My hair in the shower drain,
my smell on your sweaters,
bobby pins all over the window sills.
I make the best sandwiches you’ve ever tasted.
You’ll be in charge of napkins.
I can’t do a pull-up.
But I’m great at excuses.
I count broken umbrellas after every thunderstorm,
and I fall asleep repeating the words thank you.
I will wake you up early
with my heavy heartbeat.
You will say, Can’t we just sleep in, and I will say,
No, trust me. You don’t want to miss a thing.
SUBWAY
Next time it rains, come with me to 96th and Broadway.
The subway station there has a grate with no roof
and the rainfall slips between the grating up above
and hits the tops of coming trains so that it
flies back up in all directions,
splattering the platform like a painter’s palette.
Or else, come with me on a night without rain
and stand with me so that we may peer through
the cracks in the grate and see the soles of New York pass by—
the strips of dark blue evening
streaked above the whir of metal.
Raising a baby in NYC … is like growing an oak tree in a thimble.
—Manhattan Mini Storage Billboard
THE OAK TREE SPEAKS
Do you know how many ways there are to die in this city?
1. Speeding taxicab.
2. Open manhole cover.
3. The man breathing so heavy at the bus stop.
When I was a teenager, the boy I loved would pay a homeless
guy ten bucks to buy him the cheapest bottle in the liquor store.
My love sucked the glass ‘til his teeth were marbles. Rolled
himself down the subway stairs, hopped onto the tracks. Waited.
4. Jealous wife.
5. Brooklyn Bridge.
6. Fire escape.
Only once, he let it get so close I screamed. I had never made
that kind of sound before. He turned, his face a prayer wheel
atop his neck, a smile so foreign I could not speak its language.
Like water running in reverse, he spilled himself up to safety.
When the train hurricaned past, the fist of air rattled my branches.
7. Rooftops, all of them.
8. The barroom brawl.
9. The West Side Highway.
10. The wrong street corner.
In New York, when a tree dies, nobody mourns that
it was cut down in its prime. Nobody counts the rings,
notifies the loved ones. There are other trees.
We can always squeeze in one more. Mind the tourists.
It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t wanna live there.
11. Disgruntled coworker.
12. Central Park after dark.
13. Backpack through the metal detector.
14.
15.
16.
For years, we wouldn’t watch movies where they destroyed
New York. The aliens never take Kansas, we joked. They go straight for
the heart. Poor Kansas. All cornfields and skyworks. All apple pie.
Nobody to notice if it’s missing. Just all that open space to grow in.
THE TOOTHBRUSH TO THE BICYCLE TIRE
They told me that I was meant for the cleaner life;
that you would drag me through the mud.
They said that you would tread all over me,
that they could see right through you,
that you were full of hot air;
that I would always be chasing,
always watching you disappear aft
er sleeker models—
that it would be a vicious cycle.
But I know better. I know about your rough edges
and I have seen your perfect curves.
I will fit into whatever spaces you let me.
If loving you means getting dirty, bring on the grime.
I will leave this porcelain home behind. I’m used to
twice-a-day relationships, but with you I’ll take all the time.
And I know we live in different worlds, and we’re always really busy,
but in my dreams you spin around me so fast, I always wake up dizzy.
So maybe one day you’ll grow tired of the road
and roll on back to me.
And when I blink my eyes into morning,
your smile will be the only one I see.
NEW YORK, JUNE 2009
1. The man loading mannequins into the back of a truck in the rain.
There are sirens somewhere uptown, and the
mannequins’ hollow necks are becoming teacups for rainwater.
He is holding her around the waist, rolling her down the sidewalk.
The rain is not letting up, and he hurries,
trying not to topple the hourglass.
They stand patiently on the curb while he lifts them
one by one onto the truck bed,
the dirty leather of his palms like gentle tiger paws.
And despite the rain, they do not slump,
but stand tall like dancers:
their perfect postures reminding him
of so many places he would rather be.
2. The man sitting on the fire hydrant at 39th and 8th.
You are not old enough to be my grandfather,
your wrinkles tucked neatly into your plaid collared shirt.
Your face offered upwards, eyes closed.
You are collecting sun rays to take back with you
into the air conditioning.
You are as still as a gargoyle, as frail as a praying mantis.
The traffic and passersby are just whispers in the folds of your ears.
Someone honks, and you breathe in,
the sun baking you like a croissant in the midday light.
3. The last time I apologized.
It was warm and I did not need a sweatshirt.
We stopped in the middle of the block,
a woman with a stroller pushed a pink bundle past us.
You planted your feet firmly when I said your name.
A truck on the street rolled over a grate,
and the metal clanging filled the air like
a speech bubble between our faces.
My fingers found my elbows, my neck bone, the hem of my pants.
Down the block, a man in a dirty apron came outside for a smoke,
wiped his hands on his lap and lit a cigarette,
calling over his shoulder, Sí, claro. Pero un momento por favor.
THE FIRST POEM IN THE IMAGINARY BOOK
If it were me, when the book arrives,
I would immediately start scanning
pages to find any trace of me.
My name, references to my body,
my secrets, moments we shared.
I would pretend to be horrified if I
found evidence of myself, but really
I would pray to find even a single
mention. You may do nothing like that.
You may not even crack the spine.
You may place this on the bookshelf,
or worse, under a stack of papers.
You may forget it and regift it later
to someone as a Secret Santa.
I will never know.
But just in case you are like me,
just in case you do still think about
the way your hands used to piano-key
my spine, the way you would whisper
spells into my ears when I was napping,
the way I slipped notes into your
jacket pockets; just in case you wonder
if all those winks ever meant anything
at all, I will tell you.
You do not need to look very
hard to find your shadow here.
Your fingerprints are on these pages.
So many of your footsteps in the snow.
MRS. RIBEIRO
I was visiting a school in Northern India when I heard it
for the first time in ages. It was barely audible above the shouting
of children—the squeals and laughter bubbling from the schoolyard
through the classroom windows. But it was there: the swish of silk
saris and the jingle jangle of bangles on thin wrists like wind chimes.
This is what learning sounds like. I remember.
When I was five years old, the principal of my Junior School was
Mrs. Ribeiro. She was an Indian woman the size of a nightlight,
and she glided like a sailboat through the hallways of my school.
Once, when I got close enough to grab a fistful of her draping
silk sari, I lifted it to try and see whether she had any feet at all.
I thought she floated.
We begged to be sent to her office: the hanging plants like a jungle
above our heads, her quiet laughter. Adults needed appointments,
but we did not. And even when she was in a grown-up meeting,
all it took was a gentle knock on the door, a peek around the corner,
and she was off calling, Sorry dear. We’ll have to reschedule.
I have to see someone else about a very important matter.
It’s about a gold star. It’s about a new diorama.
It’s about a finished reading book one level higher than last time.
She visited every classroom, knew every student by name.
She spoke to us like we were scholars. Artists. Scientists. Athletes.
Musicians. And we were. My world was the size of a crayon box,
and it took every color to draw her.
Once, on a New York City sidewalk, a group of women
in brightly colored saris walked by and someone shouted,
Look, Mom. Look at all those principals!
My world was the size of a classroom. It was as tall as I could stretch
my fingers, calling, Please! Let me be the one to read to Mrs. Ribeiro.
Let me be the one to show her what I know.
Clothes.
Shirt. Pants. Socks. Shoes.
Animals.
Cat. Dog. Bird. Fish.
Look how much I know.
She brought us guests and artists and a petting zoo.
They set up the cages in the parking lot
while we were still tucked up in our classrooms, unaware.
Rabbits and guinea pigs poked out their noses,
but Mrs. Ribeiro came to rest in front of the llama cage.
She and the llama considered each other for a long time.
She asked if he was tame enough to go inside.
The trainers laughed and told her he was plenty tame,
but he didn’t know how to go up stairs.
So she led him to the elevator. And when the doors slid open
on the second floor, there stood Mrs. Ribeiro in her bright pink sari,
with golden bangles and a llama on a leash.
She floated from class to class, and we stared,
cheered, laughed, and shouted.
We tugged at her sari calling,
Miss, what is that? Where did it come from?
She made us wonder. She made us question.
She made us proud of what we had learned.
Clothes.
Shirts. Pants. Shoes. Socks. Saris.
Animals.
Cat. Dog. Bird. Fish. Llama.
Look how much I’ve learned.
She taught us to share. She taught us to listen
when someone else is speaking.
&nb
sp; And then she let us go.
We were dandelion seeds released to the wind,
she asked for no return.
We are saplings now. With gentle hands.
The girl with bright cheeks and messy hairpins
now works at an orphanage in Cameroon. The boy with
the color-ordered markers is now a graphic designer in Chicago.
The one with the best diorama is now an animal activist
in Argentina. The girl who loved to read out loud
is now a poet in India. She let us fly.
So I find myself at the front of a classroom.
My students tug at my sleeves and ask me,
Miss, do all poets have crazy hair and big black boots?
I pray for patience. For wisdom. To find a way to tame all the
peculiar animals of this world, to coax them enough to brave the
elevator, to see the doors slide open to my students’ gaping mouths.
All their wild wonder.
They worry about everything.
They worry about what to write.
They worry about their grades.
They worry about who likes whom.
They talk over one another until I cannot hear them.
I tell them, Listen. Listen to one another like you know
you are scholars. Artists. Scientists. Athletes. Musicians.
Like you know you will be the ones to shape this world.
Show me how many colors you know how to draw with.
Show me how proud you are of what you have learned.
And I promise I will do the same.
MONTAUK
I am a city girl to my core. The first time my parents took me outside
of New York City to visit my uncle in New Jersey, I was standing on
the front porch of his lovely suburban home when a fast-moving
shadow caused my three-year-old heart to damn near beat out of my
chest, and I shouted, That’s the biggest rat I’ve ever seen. My uncle
calmly responded, That’s a cat, sweetie. And I shot back, Oh yeah?
Well what’s it doing outside then?
My parents figured there were some things you just couldn’t learn
from New York City. So every summer we migrated to
Montauk, Long Island—the easternmost part of New York State.
My father only got two weeks off from work a year, so whenever
August rolled around, we packed everything we could into the
company van and followed that yellow spotted line of highway
out until we couldn’t go any farther.
This is where I learned to swim, where I heard the word shit for the
first time from a bunch of surfers down at the beach. This is where I
No Matter the Wreckage