RHINO<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Alongside the creek, eucalyptus<\/p>\n
trees loosen their bark,<\/p>\n
like unraveling mummies.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Succulents in Courthouse Square<\/p>\n
resemble Dr. Seuss characters.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I take pictures of insects<\/p>\n
whose names I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Egrets and herons<\/p>\n
in swamps.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dr. Lee wants pictures<\/p>\n
of Hama’s chest and back.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Early April, the garden is parched,<\/p>\n
like the potatoes we forgot in the oven.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We forget most everything these days.<\/p>\n
Anniversaries, birthdays,<\/p>\n
wine in the freezer,<\/p>\n
Connecticut snow.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Hama\u2019s angry that Joe left<\/p>\n
her widowed, worries<\/p>\n
when I take long on errands,<\/p>\n
when my husband coughs.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
At Memorial Hospital, the nurses<\/p>\n
go on strike, as do some ER doctors.<\/p>\n
A fill-in examines the bruises<\/p>\n
from her latest fall.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dr. Dreamy, we call him\u2014<\/p>\n
mustache groomed<\/p>\n
wider than his bedside manner.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She\u2019s allergic to morphine,<\/p>\n
loves flowers, hates insects,<\/p>\n
wheelchairs, walkers,<\/p>\n
anything that crawls.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Did she lose consciousness?<\/p>\n
No. Only weight.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
I read about rainforests.<\/p>\n
Tell my husband<\/p>\n
embryonic tree frogs<\/p>\n
can choose when to hatch<\/p>\n
to avoid deadly threats.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Hydrations now are a few times a month.<\/p>\n
Transfusions every three or four weeks.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She leans back in the chair,<\/p>\n
does the Sunday crossword.<\/p>\n
My husband and I go to a nearby bar.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
At home, I slather cream on her torso,<\/p>\n
so the bumps won\u2019t itch.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She scrubs in the shower<\/p>\n
to expunge them.<\/p>\n
Dr. Lee recommends a new drug.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
In post-war San Francisco<\/p>\n
landlords peered through the windows,<\/p>\n
told newlywed Joe and Hama<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t rent rooms to Japs.<\/em><\/p>\n*<\/p>\n
Nighttime, early June, she and I dig<\/p>\n
through a boxload of pictures,<\/p>\n
like a novel we read past curfew.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Depression in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
Tokyo, the war.<\/p>\n
The house they lost<\/p>\n
to the bombings.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Father took the burnt slats <\/em><\/p>\nand built us a room.<\/em><\/p>\nWe all lived there for months<\/em>.<\/p>\n*<\/p>\n
A late summer morning.<\/p>\n
Bees huddled<\/p>\n
in a nest formation<\/p>\n
on a pin oak branch.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ugh! Ghastly!<\/em> Hama clenches my hand.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Next morning, only a few remain<\/p>\n
frantically flying over and around.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Days later, a dragonfly perches on a bamboo pole.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In Japan, red dragonflies are a sign of fall,<\/em><\/p>\nshe tells me. Pats my arm.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
When I was young, mam\u00e1 told me,<\/p>\n
moths seep from our mouths as we die.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Orange,<\/p>\n
brown, black wings<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
flutter past our tongue. We sigh,<\/p>\n
then the body is still.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I search for signs in the closet,<\/p>\n
the backyard,<\/p>\n
the holes in my t-shirt.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Hama-san, second mother,<\/p>\n
if you\u2019re well for your birthday,<\/p>\n
we\u2019ll go to the oyster house,<\/p>\n
have Kumamotos. A dozen for each.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Monday morning I awaken<\/p>\n
as the crows caw reveille.<\/p>\n
They gather like soldiers<\/p>\n
on a nearby tree.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hama\u2019s wheezing<\/p>\n
and gurgling have stopped.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A half hour later,<\/p>\n
we\u2019ll hear coos<\/p>\n
of collared doves in the yard.<\/p>\n
Luisa Caycedo-Kimura is a Colombian-born writer, translator, and educator. Her honors include a John K. Walsh Residency Fellowship at the Anderson Center, an Adrienne Reiner Hochstadt Fellowship at Ragdale, and a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship in Poetry. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems appear or are forthcoming in The Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, Mid-American Review, Rattle, RHINO, Diode, Nashville Review, The Night Heron Barks, On the Seawall, Sunken Garden Poetry 1992-2011, and elsewhere. She is a former editor of Connecticut River Review and serves as a member of the Hill-Stead Museum\u2019s Sunken Garden Poetry Festival’s Poetry Advisory Committee.<\/span><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drought Originally published in Shenandoah Santa Rosa 2015 Originally published in RHINO Alongside the creek, eucalyptus trees loosen their bark, like unraveling mummies. Succulents in Courthouse Square resemble Dr. Seuss characters. I take pictures of insects whose names I don\u2019t know. Egrets and herons in swamps. Dr. Lee wants pictures […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2391,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1511"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2391"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1511"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1517,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1511\/revisions\/1517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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