Before the flood,New Orleans gave usCrawfish plucked from spicy broth that blisteredOur lips pressed silent during the awkward family dinner;Sinking gravestones that made my mother clutch her Buddha necklace into herself;An almond-eyed doll she caressedIn a boutique of porcelain faces with glass eyes peeringThrough the lattice of dusty lace-rimmed bonnetsAs their bodies propped akimbo on their wire stands.She adored the doll,brushed its hair for as long as I wouldn’t let her mine,Dressed it in dainty dresses I would’ve ripped,Kissed its salmon-pink pouty lips that did not frown like mine,Saw in it a part of her that I didn’t have.The doll, Linh,Pushed me to the periphery of my mother’s vision.And then there was the wedding.
Fingertips newsprint-stained from the personal ads in Người Việt newspaper,Uncle spun a pinkie into his nostrilAs he asked my mother to write to the girl in the ad.When she replied in perfumed stationery,Uncle patted mom’s butt,And mine,In thank you.
My mother’s poetics devoted to othersBrought us hereIn a Virgin Mary-decked houseOf Gulf Coast fishing type of VietnameseWho sucked the eggs out of gestating crawfish.A family run by a fatherWho scolded me for spittingGum into the trashcan.“My grandsons could eat this,”And he held the chewed, faded cinnamon wad in my face,“The doctors would have to cut it out of his belly.”With this, he dragged his calloused finger down my stomach.
My mother bowed to himIn apology,In a way I’d never seen her do to a man.
Later, in our hotel room,She was wearing a shirt she’d bought at the French Quarter–Rows of cartoon womenBaring their naked breastsTo captions of “bee stings” and “blockbusters.”She finger-brushed her doll’s hairAnd without breaking gaze with Linh’s glass eyes,She told me, “IfHis grandkids are so precious, whyAre they eating out of the trashcan?”Her words eased the phantom pressureOf his finger from my stomach.
The morning of the weddingMy aunt-to-beStraightened my flower girl crownAnd applied a shade of pink lipstickThat I would not see again untilLater in the year when we would stand togetherAgain to view my grandfather’s body, nakedExcept for lipstick, to be rolledInto the incinerator.“Why?” I tugged at my mom’s sleeve.She shrugged, “To make him look more alive.”
I kept accidentally touchingMy lips and stainingMy white satin gloves pink.“It’s okay,” my new aunt saidAs she reapplied and I hidMy stained gloves under my flower basket.
The church was big and velvetyWith pews that we only had at the temple for the eldersWho could not sit cross-legged or kneel.A Christ hung before us and the fleshGrayed next to the bleeding gashes on his emaciated stomach.Hungry for distraction, I reached for the bookIn front of me, but let it splay on my lapWhen I could not follow hymns and psalmsIn Vietnamese, Latin, and an English I did not recognize.
The bilingual ceremony stretched on; I caught words about “man and wife” to “serve” and “obey”And kept my mother in the corner of my eye to mimic when she stood and kneeled and did the Sign of the cross. The French had built memories into her body.
When each pew rose to follow my uncle and new aunt’s takingOf wafer and wine,I stood too,But as I edged to the aisle,The Catholic father palmedMy chest so hardThat I fell back into the pew.He shook his finger in my face,“No Cath-o-lic,” he said in English.“But,” I stuttered and pointed at my other uncleWho would cross out the “Jes” in “Jesus” stickers and replace it with “Not,”To my bà ngoại who only put a picture of blue-eyed Chú Jesu in her house next to the deities from every other religion to cover her bases,And to my mom whose daily Buddhist chantsAre still the sound of my fears and hopes.But my mother caught my eye as I slumped, confused, in the pew.She shook her head,Then turned back to take her wafer.I sat there, as everyone else I knew took communion.
My uncle moved his bride to CaliforniaAnd their house was heavyLike drowning while walking,The weight slinging back up into the throat onlyWhen phantom footsteps raced downstairsOr the top of a translucent head peeked from behind the bed.Too scared to say anything that would make them more mad,I squeezed my eyes shut and murmured prayers to Phật BàTo protect me becauseI’d done the dishes this week,I’d dusted Linh’s head,I’d been enough to not beMurdered by a restless ghost.
After a weekend of housesitting–The iron clicked on and tumbledDown the staircase, burningTriangles into the carpet,And Vietnamese opera swelledFrom the record player upstairs–My mother, her heavy Phật Bà necklace jingling on its dainty chain,Sat down with my new aunt and asked,“Do you feel it too, little sister?”My new aunt’s eyes waveredAnd glanced at the Virgin MaryStanding tall on the mantle.“With all due respect, elder sister,”She started to my mom and I held my breath,“Ghosts are just superstitions.”My mother looked at meThe way she had that day at the wedding,And I knew we wouldn’t be returning to their house.
Before we left for the last time,I approached the mantle like an altar,But this timeStanding.The Virgin’s eyes cast to the sideUnder brush strokes of lashes,Breakable porcelain fingers gripped flowers and a heart.And in the shining trim of her veil of submission,Of humility,I could see my own faceAnd, behind me,Strangers’ shadows crossing in gold.
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Photo by Adrian Dascal on Unsplash