Both deceased, I write in a form that asks me to certify who I am by naming my parents. I do also write their names: old-fashioned names I don't always hear anymore. He was born in 1913, when stainless steel and the zipper were invented, though people still rode around in carriages— which made the cities smell like horseshit. She was born in 1933, the month a ringleted, tap- dancing five-year-old was signed to a Hollywood studio contract, and on the very day the radio was first patented. Between them, two whole decades. I know the story of how they first met, which like most other stories they told seemed unreal and extravagant, but never fiction. Like them, I have what my dentist calls a small mouth, making a history of teeth as closely packed as the over- lapping stones leading to Machu Picchu. I have a wire brace behind my lower central incisors, to correct the gap after one of the lateral incisors was extracted. When my father died in the aftermath of an earthquake, his cooling body lay on their bed for two days until we could find a coffin. When my mother died, her caregivers washed and dressed her, and then her body went straight to the crematorium. The new year doesn't feel new anymore, until the lunar new year. Already, there are festive cakes in red and gold tins at the Asian groceries. This is supposed to be the Year of the Dragon, a year predicted to bring change, opportunity, and challenge. I don't remember who said predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
