‘Seeing the Ray’ & Other Poems

The fish of the summer reef greet you

beneath freckles of light with their flat faces,

striped scales, & bubble-eyed boldness.

Festival of hues & shapes –

neon blue, rainbow, occasional snake & angel,

clownfish Father always calls Nemo.

Father’s buoy of a head sticks out

with a yellow shirt tied around it &

you watch the voyage of his snorkel.

He returns to shore after an hour & recounts

the largest fish he’s seen. It was this big,

his hands measure its invisible size.

In another sea, you charge the depths

with the boldness of experience.

You think you’ve seen it all before:

The water’s braiding of light resembles neurons,

shoals glide over forests of corals & anemone,

your breath is thunder in this silent world.

Then, despite the flawed glass of your goggles

& the trick of sand’s color, you spy it,

first as a thin kite tail waving.

The mound sailing it comes alive. A ray

trawls along the floor. Its body ripples

before vanishing into rocky cover.

You resurface but Father is no longer there

to hear of your discovery, so you turn

to your mother, your sisters & brothers,

You spread out a palm

as wide as you can & say,

It was that big.

came up when I Googled places in Bangkok

that would allow me to wear the dresses I had packed.

The bar’s name was an invitation,

if a little too on the nose.

On that unlucky day and in the bar’s district,

both museums I had visited were closed,

and my husband and I wandered circles

in ferocious humidity.

We finally found the door of a building

plucked from an old Manila street.

Then, another trial, we climbed

five steep flights without an elevator.

The empty bar greeted us with jazz

as the workers unfolded chairs for the night.

The music was my father’s voice

praising Jarreau and Mangione.

I could hear his lilt, the way he grew

proud when he remembered a little-known fact.

I thought of all the countries he had visited for work,

and the smallness of four-walled boardrooms.

If he were alive, I’d ask his opinion on my husband’s

theory that each country has its own smell.

My husband and I tried to find Thailand’s

as we took seats by the balcony.

From that view, my father was singing

something about God. I was certain

by the way the sky was blooming so pink

against the train hurtling into a city

wide in its embrace.

So it has come to this:

Your voice becomes but memory,

the faulty scratch of a tune

with notes that slip from expected

exactness, the way we love

the character of old records.

Jazz, you used to tell me,

is never the same twice

when played live.

Not even the player knows

what delicious detour

his fingers will take.

When your grandson turned two,

you could not sing with us

so the family made a procession

to your grave and declared

you attended his party after all.

Father, I always hear the songs

you taught me. There is a guitar

playing in every empty corridor

or behind the naked glass

suddenly bejeweled with rain.

Every moment after you

a series of improvisations,

and the world,

the world will

keep making music.