University of Northern Iowa

SlurringAuthor(s): BRIAN KOMEI DEMPSTERSource: The North American Review, Vol. 294, No. 2, The National Poetry Month Issue(MARCH–APRIL 2009), p. 35Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20697763 .

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intend to. My father was a boxer. I

knew what he could do if he thought he ought to. When Mr. Mackey invited

my father to his property to take a

sauna, he accepted and took me along. After we'd toweled and dressed, Mr.

Mackey brought us ice-cold Nesbitfs. Before we'd dressed, he tipped over our

heads a couple of buckets of ice-cold water. He stood on a ladder to dump the water.

My uncle revered Billy Graham, and even Catholics like Cushing or Sheen,

especially Sheen, and fancied what he called "his own selfless self" a potential star. But the kid ranch tanked, as did a

number of other churchy start-ups in the Mid- and Southwest. When he

died, the man was divorced and living in Phoenix, where he chlorinated

people's swimming pools. My aunt

lived out her life in Tulsa. In college, I knew a heroin addict

named Sally who owned a health food store named Good. Sally loved coffee, but would only drink the water

processed decaffeinated sort. Her store was known for its New Age Bibles and bee pollen.

Eddie Turner, Jackie Baker, and I lobbed dirt clods at Mrs. Lorango's wet

sheets every wash day until we got

caught. We were surprised that Mrs.

Lorango knew we were the throwers and that our parents, without checking with us, bought the story. We'd hid behind a berm and pretended we were

pulling grenade pins with our teeth.

My brother Ross had lived, but had not come home. My mother's breasts were removed not long after the subdued funeral. What I remember is

my mother in bed or shuffling furni ture and appliances to wax the house's linoleum floors. Floors hidden by a

sofa or fridge, shone. We had ironed clothes and clean sheets, a waxed floor, hand-cracked wheat, and all that you could make of it. My mother sang

harmony, a sweet alto. She sewed. One

Halloween, I was Zorro, and had been an outfitted gunslinger, a knight, a

pirate, and king. One year, I was a

robot in a costume I made myself of

empty boxes. I spray painted over

Zenith, Del Monte, Corn Chex. When I

walked, I'm certain I looked addled or

drunk?stiff-legged, stiff-necked, stiff backed?a squat human in discarded cartons.

BRIAN KOMEI DEMPSTER

Slurring

The day Greg Hernandez fouled me hard and I spit Spie into his face, you lather Ivory inside

a washcloth, rinse my mouth of sin. Leaning over the sink, I foam white liquid, swear

to say even worse, leave you closed inside your studio where your lips pucker into elided sharps and flats?

muted in the bell of your trombone?and you crumple up failed scores. Without you, father,

my mouth is less bitter, my ears raging in scale and pitch on the bus where Greg hurled Chipmunk chink at Henry Choy,

mocked his buck teeth and Coke bottle glasses, your white skin one shade of me, this half laughing

when Damon Brown high-fived Greg and shouted

My nigger as he crawled beneath the seat to cinch the shoelaces of Henry who rose up, fell flat

on his face. Henry wiped tears and dirt from his cheeks,

buried his face in his hands, and the loneliness of my own face retreated to the chain-linked schoolyard

where I unspooled my kite and played out

my first score of blood: the knuckles from Greg's uppercut,

Damon holding my arms behind my back

calling me Jap and Greg slicing the kite's string. Mother is quiet while she wraps your trombone and mutes

in cloth, straps them in your black suitcase. Your studio

empty, we both feel its sting, sharp as my split lip salting my mouth, the dragon's flapping crepe

lifting away from me like your plane. Its red flames bleeding into clouds, gauze my mother dipped

in alcohol. When she bandages me, the mirror reflects the burn of nip, the trap of her yellow skin,

and I hold in words the way she does each time the house grows silent of you turning golden slurs.

March-April 2009 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 35

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