Three Poems, by Jerrold Yam
Acquaintance
Sometimes, when the earth prepares for rain, I think
of having a child. Like me
it shall not know, gathering life at another’s expense
as cloud from lake, how cells become matter,
how generously it lowers into being. And on nights
when the weight of achievement bears
down on its furs and wires, the cord
like a ladder tucked away to keep
from tripping, it may recognize who
seeks behind grace, patient plougher
sifting a harvest of arteries. No prize on earth
will be equal to dust. Turning,
its soil is renewed, bone panelled like oak
and pliant walnut, seconds before birth
he holds it, in love’s toothed harrows, and runs.
Archaeology
It was worth all the fighting, when I was younger,
the way land heaved apart, surrendering to land
greater than itself, the dirt’s authority
over its pretty tenants. I saw tarmac
recede into a scrawl, my face turned away from my mother
as she braved another holiday. Then it
wasn’t about control, or my sister’s quiet shedding
I later conceded to be generosity
and loved her for it, these days I could build
cities on my mother’s flesh
to deem her selfish. And from my seat
the lights persevere, thin
as scattered vertebrae, I am thinking of our family’s
women as faraway bulbs, their history
with crippling loss, and
how I am pieced together, shell and sand,
from the spine of their collective strength. Who
knew. Something tells me I’m ready for
the better nature of distance, I want to gather their
ashes before the plane reconciles with earth.
Trinity
When she feels one isn’t enough for bargaining,
or if the task is so wildly magnificent she
assumes independence to be insincerity,
my sister and I troop to her room, back-up soldiers,
kneeling together on the bed where her
body perseveres, lifeless, at night. The words
come unnatural to me, tiredly graveling
over my mouth, each vowel
hardened from the clay of my lips, as if
painfully sculptured for the air to receive. Then
it is my sister’s turn, sounds pouring
off her light, cavernous body and
off the largesse of her youthful heart as
easy as talent. I wonder what
makes her so genuine in the face of people,
even the ones we live with, or
especially the ones who have brought us
violently into this world. I seek
out her tiny, iridescent
paper heart, like pure crystal, and
press it to mine as my forehead now lies
seared to the thumbs of my clenched hands. When my
mother speaks, her voice easing off
to surround us whole, all I see in the mineral dark
is a three-pointed star, a diadem
of faith, made with pliable metal
limbs of mother, sister, self,
our heads pointing like compasses to the hollowed
core of a soul, of souls that
ache after a family.
