Via Negativa

High up on my left thigh, a brown mole,
its tint muted by time. I used to wonder
if this could be listed as one of my
"identifying features"— what's meant 
when describing the shape of your nose,
how your brows arch or careen to the left 
while the other lies inert as a tent 
that could never be raised. Most 
of the time I forget it's even there. 
Not something to register, stepping out 
of the shower and toweling off. My mother 
had moles across her back— a page out of 
connect-the-dots coloring books like the ones
she bought so I could amuse myself and never
be bored. Connect the dots, from one to ten 
to fifty to almost a hundred, the age she 
would have been had she not passed away 
at ninety. After I gave birth to my first
child, she handed me a warmed-up cup
of coconut oil to stroke across my
belly. For the stretch marks, she said.
For helping speed up the skin's snapping
back to the state it was before it
was marked by life, if I was lucky. 

The bottom drawer holding sweaters and 
scarves: you can't make it stick, except 
with a wad of cardboard. The refrigerator 
leans slightly to the right, resting against 
a wooden block you inserted between its shoulder 
and the wall. The jagged line across the counter 
panels, invisible until you look under the top: 
like the view of a crooked gap in the teeth 
of someone when they finally smile with their 
whole mouth. There's so much inventory you 
can list of the mismatched, the propped-
up, the almost falling down. Your dream,
when you dreamed of a house, was of floors
that flowed smooth as the afternoon light
falling on them through windows. Rooms
you could almost hear breathing, before
the years filled them with clothes and 
furniture, small appliances that chimed  
or sang the start of the day or the end  
of a washing cycle. You want to apologize
to keys and quilts, bottles of cleaner 
under the sink, the orange in the fruit
bowl and the banana that turned mushy— 
at least explain how all you wanted was 
an orderly life, the magic of simplicity
and alignment. But they remind you again
that this is what it is. And if you are
tender to yourself, you'll hear and 
maybe even smell the rain falling on 
asphalt, unroll the waxed and wrinkled 
map of this life which shows you there 
are still wildnesses left unexplored. 
  

It isn't only nonhuman creatures who live
       on sweetness that turns to rot,

on flesh before it shrinks to carrion
       then bone. Sometimes, we have 

no choice. We solder what scraps 
       we find, fashion these into armor, 

knowing how the body underneath is
       a lesson in smallness and easy 

bruising. The moon spills silver. 
       Even the desert holds its breath 

when dark shadows pass overhead, ready 
       to swoop down for the kill: the signal 

to fold in on ourselves. Consider the iron-
       clad beetle, plated with warts. 

It rolls over in the face of danger,  
       turns into the very idea of death.  

It clicks so still, the world mistakes  
       its blue for gone. I want to learn 

this trick, train my body to disappear 
       in plain view until the coast 

is clear. To come back alive, still 
       stubborn, unruined, not yet done.

I remember Star Café on Session Road, the place
my father and his friends gathered for a brew.
For me, a cold bottle of chocolate milk; a plate

of fries, homework spread out on the oily table.
Waiters balanced plates of noodles, walking through
iconic Star Café on Session Road. Now, no trace

of this haunt that held memories with such grace.
And fewer, now, the pines that fog can sidle through.
Cold beads on a glass of chocolate milk— that glaze

bends my focus to that faraway childhood place.
Remember egg pie, quail eggs in oyster sauce? Who
still remembers Star Café on Session Road, a place

where time moved on yet anchored itself in place,
in memory? Hands moved pieces over chessboards. Who
knew how much I'd miss Star Cafe, this ordinary place 
whose doors swung open to a cold glass, a warm plate.

We don't have to lie when we're incredible.
Believe the way you walk into the room, then.
Take possession of the air. The AC's the lie— 
carefully controlled temperature that lies
between don't melt or scorch. The chandelier
tinkles faintly. Greenery's espaliered against
the wall. But you can rearrange any disbelief
so it shreds like cheap plastic. Saliently
discomfited that you show up in this milieu
(where youth and beauty believe the lie about
their superiority), the jurors lie: they "always 
had you in their sights." In lieu of praise,
a token. In lieu of acceptance, the chance 
to be redeemed by those holier than you.  

Just once I knew what life was for.
The hoarders though, once they got
their hands on it, said once is not
enough. Ones, tens, twenties, currency
in whatever form whet one's appetite
for more and more. For a taste, just once
what would you give or give up? Once, we
lined up for ashes, the ones drawn in
the shape of a cross: reminder that wants
are different from needs, that once this
life is done, one's status and wealth are
of no consequence. Once upon a time, I
wanted just as much and hard as any. 
Once, I thought I knew what life was for.