Category: Angela Narciso Torres

by Angela Narciso Torres

a cento using lines from Katherine Mansfield’s journal

The year is nearly over.

A thick white mist reaches the edge of the field.

There is no limit to human suffering.

I am sad tonight. Perhaps it is the wind.

A thick white mist reaches the edge of the field.

This joy of being alone. What is it?

I am sad tonight. Perhaps it is the wind.

The black chair, half in shadow, as if a happy person sprawled there.

This joy of being alone. What is it?

I feel the new life coming nearer.

The black chair, half in shadow, as if a happy person sprawled there.

For all the sun, it is raining outside.

I feel the new life coming nearer.

And then the dream is over and I begin working again.

For all the sun, it is raining outside.

I feel always trembling on the brink of poetry.

And then the dream is over and I begin working again.

Am I less of a writer than I used to be?

I feel always trembling on the brink of poetry.

Sometimes I glance up at the clock.

Am I less of a writer than I used to be?

I must begin all over again.

Sometimes I glance up at the clock.

To look up through the trees to the faraway blue.

I must begin all over again.

To live—to live—that is all.

To look up through the trees to the faraway blue.

I want to remember how the light fades from a room.

To live—to live—that is all.

There is no limit to human suffering.

I want to remember how the light fades from a room.

The year is nearly over.

from What Happens is NeitherFind more by Angela Narciso Torres at the library

Copyright © 2021 Angela Narciso Torres
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

by Angela Narciso Torres

Something of late November

sifting through a window

brings back this prelude.

Two voices blend, I lean

into the keys, draw back

when the voices part.

How the body remembers—

Señora V. in a floral dress,

talcumed hand soft

on the curve of my spine

imprinting what she knew

of love and time. How could I know

what those notes would mean

decades of preludes ahead.

from What Happens is NeitherFind more by Angela Narciso Torres at the library

Copyright © 2021 Angela Narciso Torres
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

by Angela Narciso Torres

Mother chose the dress—mint-green with puffed sleeves. White starched collar, electric-pleat skirt, lace socks that chafed my ankles. At the party, she made me kiss everyone: aunts reeking of Joy by Jean Patou, swaybacked uncles cradling beers, my grandmother smoking clove cigarettes between puffs of her inhaler. Someone was laughing loudly. Someone played a ukulele. From a far table, the rumble of mah-jongg tiles being shuffled by a quorum of matrons, their lacquered nails clicking, wreathed in cigarette smoke. Cousins wrestled on the scorched lawn. A small place behind my ribs felt tender, making it hard to breathe. I wanted most of all to lie in the pink shell of my room, a book within reach. Someone passed around colorful sandwiches in the shape of card suits: diamonds, spades, clubs. Someone carried a tray of fizzy drinks, handing them to the grownups. I imagined sneaking a sip and getting smaller and smaller like Alice, then crawling into Mother’s conch evening bag, the clasp closing overhead with a satisfied click. Mother whispered a greeting to a woman in a floral print kaftan. I vanished into their murmurs and shadows, a cloud of camphor and carnations.

from What Happens is NeitherFind more by Angela Narciso Torres at the library

Copyright © 2021 Angela Narciso Torres
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

by Angela Narciso Torres

The almost-neon sheen of moss

spreading like a stain on

the ash tree’s grooved bark,

the hammock’s frayed rope

to which the finches return,

trailing silk to their nests,

but mostly the quiet

of a neighbor’s house, white

drapes billowing, bring back

those silences I moved in

as a child, a shadow slinking

through empty rooms.

Dust motes tunneled light above

the cold floor where, belly-down

I sprawled, goose feather in hand.

If I lay there long enough,

if I brushed the feather

on a fixed spot on the pebble-

washed floor, how long before

I’d make a dent? The point

is not that when night fell

there was barely a scratch. The point

is how, armed with a feather,

I believed I could make a mark.

from What Happens is NeitherFind more by Angela Narciso Torres at the library

Copyright © 2021 Angela Narciso Torres
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

by Angela Narciso Torres

What drew me was the rectangular squat of it,

the hefty boxful of sound you could plant

on a desk or shelf, its walnut veneer

nested among cables, chargers and string lights.

Next to me, a man inspecting a pair of headphones

saw me turn the radio over to check the tag

and smiled, more to himself than at me,

and I don’t know why I told him

my dad had a radio just like it and, isn’t it cool,

those three silver dials and a lighted tuning

scale so you can see what station you’re looking for?

He picked up a scratched iPod before I could say,

Look—no battery pack or carrying strap! So when

your mother settles down to her talk show,

she’s bound to stay where she is, paying bills

or reading or filing her nails, just like my dad

when he turned on his shiny Panasonic, permanently

set at DZFX contemporary sound of radio in Makati

while he signed papers or typed on the Smith Corona

as I sprawled on the rug, knowing he’d stay

riveted until Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7,

performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

and conducted by Karl Böhm, reached its grand finale.

But for now the first movement was just gaining momentum.

It would be a while before the tsunami of brass

and strings that broke through the staticky silence would end

in applause and we’d stand up to do the routine

things around the house—but not yet—

not while that spell of sound held us,

pouring from a silver box rooted to the wall

and my father, leaning back in his chair,

eyes fixed in the middle distance between desk

and darkening window, wasn’t going anywhere,

and the brown shag rug beneath us wasn’t going anywhere.

from What Happens is NeitherFind more by Angela Narciso Torres at the library

Copyright © 2021 Angela Narciso Torres
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

by Angela Narciso Torres

the egret leaning windward

beak poised for stabbing

shadows in the reeds

*

her eyes: milky panes

between dream and confusion

staring/not staring

*

as a child I thought

sitting rock-still I could

make time stop

*

the pen’s nib hovers

above the line a hummer’s

electric wingbeats

*

the gap between tracks

on a vinyl record—

from What Happens is NeitherFind more by Angela Narciso Torres at the library

Copyright © 2021 Angela Narciso Torres
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

by Angela Narciso Torres

Is Memory, / as they pretend, / mother of the Muse?— /

or Forgetting,

—James Richardson

1/

She lapses into music, rising from dinner to play piano as we eat and

talk. As if togetherness were a storm cloud in June, filled to bursting.

A brooding monsoon.

2/

Her memories, black pigeons flying off at dusk. Who knows where

they spend the night? Dawn finds them back at the cote, softly

cooing. In time their flights will cover greater distances. Some will

disappear for days. A few will never return.

3/

When my father comes home from work, she claps like a birthday

child: Papa! A pause. Where’s my husband? My father, swallowing

hard. Still at work, hija.

4/

Casting my line in a dark pool, I bait her memory like fish. Mother,

who painted that portrait of you? Tell me your lola’s recipe for oxtail

stew. When did you learn to play the kundimans? Her eyes, two

searchlights, sweeping.

5/

Later in bed she turns to him. Where’s Kit, Papa? He dresses in

darkness, retrieves his violin case from the hallway. I’m home, he says,

kissing her forehead. He sits on her side of the bed till she falls asleep.

6/

Have you heard of the pearl divers of Davao—mere boys plowing

headfirst into the freezing deep, holding their breaths for minutes at

a time to find the largest oysters, the ones that might hold the prized

black pearl, their only light—dim lamps tied to their foreheads?

7/

Her lips form the words to the Our Father all the way to the Great

Amen. Her fingertips roll invisible rosary beads.

8/

My father’s voice cracks over the phone. She’s been looking for you,

he says. Calls you Mama or Sister Amelita. Or sometimes, that little

girl who was just sitting there. I’ve been playing kundimans for her, he

says. She knows the words.

from What Happens is NeitherFind more by Angela Narciso Torres at the library

Copyright © 2021 Angela Narciso Torres
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

by Angela Narciso Torres

there was a piano she loved

cherubs carved on cherry wood

hands ripple over ghost keys

she nods off, chin to chest

do you want to lie down? no

under the palms in a pink housedress

what is your name? she asks

again cherubs playing violins

sunlight slips behind ferns

from What Happens is NeitherFind more by Angela Narciso Torres at the library

Copyright © 2021 Angela Narciso Torres
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

by Angela Narciso Torres

two days after grandfather died

his letter arrived from Manila

sky blue aerogramme

trifolded and sealed

by the aunt who kept vigil

typing for him what words

he had left on the Smith Corona

with the broken lowercase i

that pierced holes through paper

I remember school nights

finding him still

awake listening

for my backpack’s thud

on the wood floor

leading to his bedroom

slowly he’d rise

a smoker’s cough

clearing his throat

his voice tunneling

in half-dark

Are you here now, hija?

a direct translation

from Tagalog

Nariyan ka na, anak?

meaning You’re here, child?

meaning I’ve been waiting, dear one

holding the crinkled sheet

against the October sky

I find another sky

deeper blue

pinpricks of light

shining like Day-Glo stars

Yes, Papa. I’m here.

from What Happens is NeitherFind more by Angela Narciso Torres at the library

Copyright © 2021 Angela Narciso Torres
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

by Angela Narciso Torres

My first year living in America

the scent of frying garlic

sent me weeping. My eyes

swept the somber avenues,

starving for color. I devoured

the aquamarine of broken glass,

a wire festooned with yellow shoes,

the shower of plum blossoms

on a sidewalk. The memory

of sour mangoes made rivers

in my mouth. At the market, I picked

the greenest nectarines, dredged them

in salt that stung my chapped lips.

Words I hoarded like rock

candy, melted on my tongue

like my too-hard r’s. Range Rover, red

robin, river rock. I practiced

into the ear of an empty flagon,

reciting litanies to the saint

of lost things. The walls

echoed with whispers.

Lying lily-still in the goblet

of night, I drank the croons

of nameless birds.

from What Happens is NeitherFind more by Angela Narciso Torres at the library

Copyright © 2021 Angela Narciso Torres
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.