Free Bird Eating Bird by Kristin Naca Page B

what good is singing to describe
    this barrio’s version of the shortened sky,
    el cielo cortado —power lines crisscrossing
    so high, that blue only teases through them.
    And what for fog la niebla arrastra,
    creeping down las calles inmóviles
    before the bank and grocery store open.
    Y por la zapatería on Liberty Avenue,
    a lady’s antique boot for a street sign.
    And by the shoemaker’s
    What use to remember in any language
    my father was a Puerto Rican shoe salesman.
    From his mouth dangled a ropy, ashy cigarette.
    He spoke good English and knew when to smile.
    fishing nets
    With his strong fingers he’d knot shoes like redes,
    knew three kinds of knots so lady customers
    could buy the shoes they loved to look at
    but really shouldn’t have worn.
    At home, Dad kept his lengua íntima
    to himself. His Spanish not for children,
    only older relatives who forced him to speak,
    reminded, Spanish means there’s another person
    inside you . All beauty, he’d argue, no power in it.
    Still, I remember, he spoke a hushed Spanish
    to customers who struggled in English, the ones
    he pitied for having no language to live on.
    So many years gone, what use to invent
    or question him in Pittsburgh? The educated one,
    why would I want my clumsy Spanish to stray
    from the pages of books outward? My tongue,
    he’d think so untrue and inarticulate. Each word
    having no past in it. What then? Speaking Spanish
    to make them better times or Pittsburgh
    a better place. En vez de regresar la dura realidad
    del pasado. And then, if I choose to speak like this
    who will listen?
    Instead of returning
to the hard reality
of the past

ODE TO GLASS
    After its lip
    the bottle flares out
    like the A-line of
    a girl’s skirt
    when she twirls
    at recess.
    On the descent
    the company’s crest—
    one red and one blue
    crescent about to
    clasp together
    into a globe
    but between
    them, the name
    of the soda sits
    in bold, white letters.
    Below
    the slogan
    the tiny print:
    contenido neto 355 ml,
    and hecho en México,
    in perfectly
    executed paint.
    Partway down
    the bottle corners
    into a barrel-shape,
    the swiveled glass,
    the same as stripes
    of a barber’s pole, forces
    the eye to follow
    and twist along its
    blurred contours,
    the way skin blurs
    the contours of
    an arm so you
    slow down into
    the elbow’s nook.
    And how much
    like skin the peach
    and brown and blue
    reflections inside
    the glass lend it
    dimension while outside
    the surface and shape
    are seamless, but
    for some stitching
    underneath, a zipper
    dialed around the
    bottle’s base to
    serve as feet.
    And where
    the glass corners
    from cone to barrel
    a ring carved from
    the bottles being
    packed too close
    and rubbing together
    in their crates.
    Scars that
    keep dry and
    soft as silk, even as
    the glass beads, and
    you start to trace
    the droplets back
    over the powder,
    and still dry after
    you’ve swabbed up
    the condensation
    and your fingers
    have gone clumsy
    from the bottle’s
    brittle sweat.
    When the bottle’s
    this cold, the swivels
    of glass are charged,
    icy bulbs that steal
    heat from the nubs
    of your fingertips,
    so you rub them
    to your forehead
    and feel nothing
    but your own heat
    swirl back and forth
    from your head
    to your hand.
    Each time you drink—
    the bubbles rising up
    through the sweet,
    brown liquid, stirring
    your nose, then lips—
    how easily details
    of time slip away and
    you’re seven-years-old
    again drinking Pepsi
    at the sari-sari store
    next to Uncle Ulpe’s
    house in Manila. And
    you guzzle it down.

BAPTISM
    The taller men with baseball bats, a tree branch garbled with knots,
    log iron, and leftover pipe from the fence they put up last summer.
    The shorter men gripping buck knives for slashing at the pig’s neck.
    And ripened on a dry slop of peanuts, cornflakes, and newspaper
    shavings, moiled between the washer and dryer and shelves of dust-caked
    soda bottles, the pig that grew tall enough to sniff and lick the