Breadcrumb #618

JANETTE CHIEN

Little One

You came from a seed that wouldn’t quite sprout. 

I gazed, willing for a bud to emerge, searching for patterns along the skin. 

As you nestled, I cleared the soil around you so you could breathe freely, a space for wishful expansion, a blooming in my eyes as the space in my belly grew before you did.

With bated breath, I waited, waited, waited, 

No doubt, no seed purged from the dark womb, awaiting muffled sobs. Inside, static vibrates active inactivity, invisible but to me. 

You mustn’t pluck the fruit until it is ripe, until it has loosened from its stem. 

If it is too soon, the ghost fruit child wraps herself around your ankles, tighter with each step.

Until all you feel are tiny fingers bruising the skin. And your steps can no longer be light.

Will it hurt

Will it hurt, mama?

No my darling, it will be like a tiny prick, a butterfly’s feet, you won’t even feel it. Look at me and hold my hand. Everything will be okay. 

She smoothes my hair, and she takes my hand and I rub my fingertips along the callouses on her palms, counting one, two, four. Prick. Ouch. My eyes water.

All done, the doctor says. He presents me with a cherry-flavored lollipop. I smile. 

Will it hurt, mama?

No my darling, lift your arms and dive into the water. It will surround you and hold you. Women are created from water, child. 

Will it hurt, mama?

No my darling. It will be like a low ache in your abdomen, and a drip drip down there. You won’t be able to swim for a week. It’s part of becoming a woman. 

She places her hand on my belly, and I frown. I love the water and I am angry that it will be taken from me. She smiles at me.

You don’t have to worry about that now. 

Can I help, mama?

Of course, my darling. She hands me the basket and shows me how to strip the strings from the beans, how to peel the skins from the tomato so they do not muddy the soup. I am slow with my clumsy hands and become frustrated.

It’s okay, little one, when you have kids, you will learn. 

Can I use this, mama?

Of course, my darling. Though you are much too young and lovely to wear makeup. She takes the brush, dips it in the delicate powder and brushes my nose. The shade is too light, my skin is too dark. I appear like a ghost in her vanity mirror. She wrestles my kinky hair into two braids. 

So coarse-lah, must be from your father’s side. 

Can I wear this, mama?

Of course, my darling. But I don’t know if it will fit your da pi gu. She laughs, tapping my backside. My breasts are budding like tiny cones. Her flowing dresses trail the ground and blouse buttons strain around my waist. I am only 12 and I can fit into her shoes.

So big and healthy, like a real American. Your flesh is so tight and tan. Not loose like mine.

She shakes and jiggles side to side. Her arms are white, so white. A drifting pattern of stretch marks follows along her arm. She hides them with her hands when she changes. 

Why are his hands like that, mama?

Do not stare, my darling. Uncle Sammie was electrocuted as a child and it paralyzed his left side. Schoolboys dared him to climb up a telephone pole. They were wild back then, chasing light bulbs that flowed down the canal from the factory. I used to be so jealous of Sammie’s adventures. Be a good girl and go talk to him. He has not seen you in so long. You are his favorite niece. When you were a baby, he would sing revolution songs to you.

But I don’t remember him. 

How did she die, mama?

It is a sad story, my darling. Your grandmother was born with a tumor in her brain that grew and grew and grew until it began to press too hard and she could not bear it anymore. The tumor made her angry and she would curse and beat me and tell me I was ugly with a too-big mouth. 

Will you come get me, mama? 

Of course my darling, I’m on my way. What happened?

When I see her face, I start to sob. I clutch my backpack over my legs in the front office, hiding the dark bloom between my legs. The nurse didn’t have any extra skirts that fit me. 

Am I pretty, mama?

Of course my darling. You are what I would call a second beauty. At first when people see you, they may not think you are beautiful. But the more they see you, each day, each day, then they see wow, you are beautiful. 

You are what I would call a second beauty.

Will you stay with me a little longer, mama?

Of course my darling. Turn around so I can scratch your back. I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.  

When I wake up in damp sheets, fever broken, she is asleep next to me, resting her head on two hands pressed together. I touch her hair and inhale her powdery scent. She doesn’t stir. 

Will it hurt, mama?

No my darling. It is a beautiful thing as long as you are with someone special. But you musn’t let boys see all of you. You must protect yourself as long as you can. Some boys may be nice and good, but you never know. 
Will you come with me, mama?

No my darling. I wish I could. But you must go on your own. 

I am 17 now and she only comes up to my chin. She wipes my face with her hands, smoothes my hair. 

Be brave my smart girl. Take this torus pendant with you. It was your great-grandmothers’. You know the quality of the jade because it is nearly transparent and they have burrowed a circle very wide in the center. It must be done by hand or it will snap. Now it is even stronger, harder. Here. 

***

Girls

We run bare armed into the sea--
feeling the sand and salt between our teeth

Take my hand, now.

In a fierce second, we plunge into the icy waters--
feeling like a thousand needles against our skin

Come on, now.

We emerge reborn from mother water, mother earth, mother sea
she holds us

What will everyone think, now?

We hold each other
feeling the cool damp skin of your shoulder, pressed against my cheek
same size now

Stay here, now.

The waves drown out our cries, turn them into coos and awes

Do as you’re told, now.

We take turns kissing each other on the forehead to
feel tenderness

Get to bed, now.

Do you remember how to swim? I ask. 
I don’t think I was born with this ability
go deeper and feel the water overtake you

Get undressed, now.

I think I’m sinking
I think I’m doing it wrong
The waves are too high--

Don’t worry, I have you now. 

***

How long will you stay with me, baby?

From the big screen windows of the bus, I see.

Little girl with glasses too big for her face. Her mother stands in front of her, shielding her from the street, same hair but cropped close, waiting…

How long will you stay with me baby?
Patterned hat with the ear flaps and yarn tassels
Pink mouth taking bites of a blueberry muffin
I sling your small violin over my shoulder
And in your jeans and doc martens, your feet are growing faster than the rest of you.

Now, I don’t need to hold your hand anymore, because I know that you will stay close. 

I switch back and forth between them. Am I Girl? Mother? Which do I need more to feel? 

Not mother, once infinite and vast, now crumpled like an injured bird to cup in my palm.

Not child, helpless with growing resentment like a weed emerging, holding the earth close and overwhelming it. Surpassing mother in distance from head to toe, curling, turning, closing.

The hum of the bus carries us away and mother and daughter are left behind waiting for the next.

• • •

Breadcrumb #617

CYNTHIA J. ROMÁN-CABRERA

I saw something that made
me wonder if there was ever a way
to be this still—
Does someone stop before they drown?

**

I slept on the edge
of circles,
the good of pure
on the small of my reflection.
My voice, a fear of 
conviction, a chase 
in pieces entangled,
water like satin sheets
before the drowning,
cleansing,
filling me like a still bath. 

Veins pulse grain, 
beat orotund,
a deceit in the light breeze
of mornings’ ballad,
bearing silence. 

 Stars like arms strewn space,
grasp this and that—
all created,
of goddesses kneeling
before concrete air, 
in awe of body,
self-destruction at bay.

• • •

Breadcrumb #616

CHRISTINA ROSSO

I remember her appearing like a shadow at first. I was eight years old. Her body was washed in gray as though she was from one of the black and white movies my aunt let me stay up and watch with her sometimes. I could see right through the woman to the open window, the moon full and blue, illuminating her from behind. As she moved closer to the bed, she gained color and vitality. She was young. Maybe eighteen, maybe twenty, I wasn’t sure. Her black hair weaved in loose curls down the sides of her white nightgown. Her complexion was darker than mine, and reminded me of wet clay. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I named her the woman in white, and she was going to be my bride.

It took me nearly forty years to find her. I had even married and started a family. What else was I to do? I told myself I couldn’t keep chasing a ghost. 

Life was good. My wife was pretty and kind. Our children sprouted freckles across their noses and cheeks like their mother. Their hair was blond like hers. I wouldn’t say I was waiting for the woman in white. Yet she never lingered too far from my mind. 

    I had just started working as a radiologist at Crest Presbyterian Hospital. A woman entered the room for a chest x-ray. “Stand against the machine with your chin resting on the top. Closer. Yes, right there,” I instructed. “Stay still.”

I wouldn’t say I was waiting for the woman in white.

     When the x-ray was complete, she turned to face me. The woman in white. She was in a hospital gown instead of a negligee, but it was she. I opened my mouth, hoping my lips would form the necessary words. The woman began coughing, her body contorting with each bark. 

It flashed before me like a film reel. The x-ray would confirm her lung cancer had spread, estimating she had a few months to live. She would die less than two weeks later. Her parents, who had spared no expense on her medical treatment, would erect a grand mausoleum for her with two lion statues stationed outside the wrought iron gate in protection of their beloved daughter.

    Tears stung my eyes. I took the woman in white in my arms and rubbed her back until the coughing fit ended. During my shifts at the hospital, I walked past her room a dozen times until she was gone. 

    A week after she was laid to rest my feet led me to her. It was just past midnight. I patted the heads of each of the lions, the ones I had envisioned, the stone both coarse and smooth. “I’ll take it from here,” I told them. 

I took the crow bar from my bag. The lock on the gate whined and then crunched as it broke. I pushed past the gate, entering the mausoleum. Moonlight cast a spotlight on her coffin in the middle of the room. I went to her, easing the coffin lid back. There the woman in white lay, dressed in the nightgown she wore when she appeared to me all those years ago. I climbed inside, adjusting her so two bodies could fit. I pressed my lips to her cheek and closed the lid, darkness surrounding my bride and me.

• • •

Breadcrumb #615

KOFI ANTWI

awaken morning

star, once beloved 

brother, submerged 

in flagellant thoughts– 

now buried dead 

or alive, and bounties 

rise and mark–stock,

a belated 

shower of 

roses – an unholy 

atrocity

the undertaker pivots

narrative reclaims faulty 

grounds, without 

permission we proceed – 

tainted souls 

begets a lofty 

slide, allude 

the great valley of 

mourning, the moon 

renders fainted bodies. 

snares of 

french kisses, 

april –  lets depart 

into the fading 

intrulude of subtle goodbyes.  

i got the blues,  a rift 

love – me  why?   

lush coupes and white 

ice. down the blvrd – 

we     boogie and 

hit  the Spanish Key,

• • •

Breadcrumb #614

BRIANNE KERR

When I was young I used to sit at the foot of the wooden rocking chair in my living room, empty,
and reach underneath the seat for the horizontal wooden bar. I would push and pull that bar, up
and around, making the chair rock, but I would pretend I was kneading bread, a task I saw only
in fairy tales, but I was sure that it would be like this, a rhythmic slow wave, with just enough
resistance to feel something. My parents would see me and worry about pinched fingers. Now,
older, on some Sundays I bake bread that I have yet to perfect enough to share and I don’t even
own a rolling pin so instead I run my fingers through its viscous flour and water and I go again
and again, fold and flatten, up and over, a sloppy ballroom dance in a kitchen neither cottage
nor palace, just here, and when I see the clock it usually tells me I’ve gone for too long.

• • •