mangos

Mom I wish
I was as adept as you
at peeling mangos.

I’d like to think I’m good
with my hands,
like you.

But I lack your certitude
and flair, knife against skin
moving easily and leaving
nothing wasted.

Idle

You said idling is underrated
so we sat on the NDSM dock
and watched the ferry cross
the IJ in 20-minute intervals.

Half of me wanted one of us to go.
The other half burnt, facing you,
my back to the June midday sun,

spaghetti-strapped tan lines
now marking the hours
we both decided to stay.




On these languid summer days
I’m trying to change my mind—
everything inside of it,
slowly.

People are arm wrestling
in the sun by the IJ
and dancing on concrete pillars
to no particular music.

The heat is in our hearts—
30 degrees and burning,
slowly.




Back (up

on Duluth, I woke up
to you watching
me sleep
and later there
were your stories about
Kenzo the hairdresser

and the best croissants in the city.
The old woman baked only a dozen
or so and
by noon the sign
was up: Désolé! Tout vendu!
and we were always
too late) then,

do you remember?

It was love.




Wreck Beach, Vancouver

Where I’ve been known
to fly six hours
just to lie
with the smell of sun-
dried seaweed and
among other things
(trees mostly)
wrecked.

In the afternoon,
I hunt for treasures (a pink shell,
a round stone, a rusted
Swiss army knife),
crouched between
driftwood and rocks
where the barnacles pop
under my feet.
I keep thinking
I’ll find it,
the perfect this
or that.




Dom

I thought about you today,
about last summer
while eating hearts of palm. You,
back from the British Virgin Islands,
your curls ocean-bleached blond
and your skin beach-blessed.

You piggy-backed me
through the Super C in Knowlton
while we ate hearts of palm
straight from the can.
Later you chased me
down the cereal aisle.

You were always chasing
girls, Dom, but I let you
get away with it.
You let me eat the soft centers,
the hearts of hearts,
the best part.




Love Abcedarian

Autoroute 20 leads to love
because I’m travelling with my love.
Candied and crooked-smiled love,
deified drunk love,
exquisite love to eyesores of love,
fuck me in the shower love,
give me dive bar bathroom love.
I love
Jameson-induced bliss, love
kisses that taste like Skittles, love
love that you bless me with. I love
manically, magnetically. I love
neurotically and never-endingly, I love.
Our love’s
piss your pants laughing love,
quarrel over a Kinks vinyl love,
restless love-sick love,
supersonic bionic love,
thumbing through Marvel comic books love,
unmade bed and unwashed laundry love,
Vespa ride in late summer love,
Worcestershire and Tabasco spiced love,
x-rated x-ray vision love.
You and I will always love.
Zealously undressing, caressing we’ll love.




Chet’s Jazz Café

I fell in love with Thea
from a velvet fainting couch.
I saw her through the rise
of bubbles in my champagne flute,
her blouse specked
with little black hearts.

She sang in a whisper,
Sono Come Tu Mi Vuoi,
the accompanying keyboard
at a volume no neighbour
could complain about.

I am as you want me to be,
aren’t I?
   
Haven’t I been, all along?

We’re tucked away here, Thea,
in plush and shades of red.
In softness, in quiet,
in your voice, I’m hiding
from the noise and the glare
of an autumn moonlit sky.




Café Nol

Kitsch draped in white tulle,
bathed in fluorescent pink light.
Crystal chandeliers hang above
a black-lit bar, the room bordered
by floral wallpaper.

We sit at high tables, bases lit
in multicolour like a game of Twister.

The original Jordaanese sang here once,
maybe where the bouncer now stands—
under a frantic LED ticker
that announces bar specials.

Still, the accordions and barrel organs
of levenslied blare, and we can sing
Oh, Waterlooplein! with drunken abandon

because it’s always fun at Café Nol—
Café Nol, altijd lol!




Parking lots

I never thought I’d miss highways
and concrete, commercial parking lots
like the one outside The Big Orange
off the Décarie Expressway,
where we’d shield our roadside Julep
and steamés from seagulls.

Or the parking lot of the Ultramar
by your mother’s house on Dufferin,
sitting on the curb by the glass
sliding doors, bare feet burning
on asphalt, sipping grape freezies
and tri-coloured Popsicle Pete in summer.

Or the sound of your Shepherd-Rottweiler’s
untrimmed nails scratching pavement
in the Pharmaprix lot on Napoléon,
back when we lived on Coloniale
in the apartment with our late nights,
the red kitchen tiles, with all the light.




Bar Bifteck

You were always such
an arrogant little shit.

But you took me that time
to a dive on The Main
with $8 pitchers
and a 2-for-1-mixed-drink special,

your only redeeming quality
being your drunken grace
at the pool table,
your wine-stained stagger,
banking shots among the regulars
in your seersucker blazer
and Windsor-knotted tie,

the way you glided through
the grime, unaffected (for once)
by the smell of piss and burnt popcorn.




First blossoms

Before I go, I’ll have a go
at the first blossoms
with a broom and a bin bag,

in the middle of the night,
stood atop my kitchen chair
collecting confetti

to save for a celebration,
any lost pink petals drifting
down the Postjesweg.




Blackpool

Come taste the salty air
at sunset on North Pier,
have a pitcher of Cheeky V
for only 7pound 50p.
We’ll head down to Pleasure,
ride the Big One together.

Let’s go to the top of the Tower
and out for happy hour.
We’ll catch a show at the Grand,
ride a donkey on the sand
and have our fate foreseen
by an old Romany Gipsy.

Meet me on the promenade
with a monster bag of rock
and see The Lights stretch on
from Starr Gate to Bispham.
Later, we’ll sit by the sea
eating chips and mushy peas.

Come and take the cure
of candy floss and a brew,
of freshly fried doughnuts,
a fighting chance at slots
and a game of bingo or two.
Two fat ladies, turn on the screw.




Cicadas

I’m doing summersaults
and the starfish float
in my parents’ pool in TMR.

I can see the second-storey
window from where
I fell and scarred the sole
of my left foot
trying to sneak back
into my room, bedsheets
tied to my bedpost.

I’m underwater again
doing handstands
in the shallow end,
like I did then, toes pointed
towards the sky.

I surface
and smile at the smell
of freshly mowed grass,
the sound of cicadas
in the neighbour’s oak tree,
and all the things I notice
now, more and more.




1:30am

I’m tired but
I stay awake to listen to
the heatwave break,
finally,
the sound of rain,
thunder, a car alarm,
the city quenching its thirst.

I watch the night
punctuated by flashes
of light
and wonder:
Is it raining where you are?
Will I sleep tonight?
Will you dream of me too.




untitled

It was another one of those things.

We watched the blood moon rise
over the IJ
and stars shoot past our heads.

I can’t explain it.

There are things I can’t explain
to myself,
things that hurt.

But here we are again,
calm
and laughing.




23/09

Today is the last day
of summer, the last day
I’ll cycle in a t-shirt,
in a warm breeze, admiring
the early-morning light.

I see it now, reflecting
off the windows
of the new builds
in an amber gloss,
and the swarm
of construction cranes
dotting the Houthavens horizon.

What will it become
and where will we be?




13/10

Outside, the leaves
on the trees in Oud-West
are red, bright red
in the sun
against a blue sky,
and already falling.

From inside, we hear
a procession of rowers
shouting on the
Kostverlorenvaart,
the sporadic knocking
of the French balcony doors
opening and closing,
the breeze cooling us
in 26-degree heat.

Today is a small gift
for you and me: one last,
misplaced summer day.




All the sounds

The breeze
is coming in now,
cooling us as we stick
to the bedsheets.

The balcony door ajar,
the neighbourhood clamour
comes in too: the yelling
and laughter of friends
celebrating the weekend,
the distant roar
of a plane descending
towards Schiphol,
a saxophonist practicing
his scales,

all the sounds
that serenade us to sleep.




Confetti

Confetti everywhere,
confetti in the air,
confetti in our hands,
confetti-covered floor.

Confetti down his shirt,
confetti in her pockets,
confetti in our hearts,
confetti in my hair.

I put confetti in my hat
and when I lift it
above my head,
I’m raining confetti.

Confetti in my bag,
confetti in our beer,
confetti in De Koe,
confetti stuck to my shoe.

Confetti on my bike,
confetti in my bed,
confetti in my head,
confetti everywhere.




Sunset, Houthavens

We’re looking at
the November sky,
the world turning pink
as it reflects
in the water of the IJ.

We’re losing
the light. Still,
we look at the sky,
our pink world,
you and I.




Still, for a moment

We’re still, for a moment,
hovering 300 meters
above the ground.
The pilot is doing tricks:

we nosedive, we fly
on our side, the sound
of helicopter blades
pulsating in my stomach.

I look back at the horizon,
a streak of fire
through rain clouds,
receding now

as the sun sets
over the Veluwe.




Sunset, Amsterdamse Bos

There we go
again, you and I

are looking at
the same sky.




Careful what you wish for

I stung my ankles on nettles
by the side of the N200
while picking wild grass
near Sloterdijk.

West of the A10 is quiet
for walking.
I don’t need people, do I?
I’ve kept—I keep—away
anyway.

I’m surveying an industrial
2km radius, finding where
blue hyacinths bloom
by concrete, looking forward
to the day my hair grows
wild, or at least
past my waist.




Amsterdam Gulls

They moved in
from the deserted coasts—
no more crowds on Zandvoort,
no discarded plastic trays
off which to scavenge
the dregs of french fries
and kibbeling on sunny days.

They moved in
onto the flat roof tops
of apartment blocks,
breeding, fledging
their offspring, and joining
the fight for prime
city-center real estate.

Mornings start early now
with the colony’s wailing calls,
waking us sometime
between 3 and 5 a.m.,
long before sunrise
and the sound of our alarms.




Isha

An overhead lamp
in an apartment
from across the way
lights the darkness,
making shadow puppets
on my bedroom wall.

23:29 is a certain hour
for prayer, when lights
go on and then off.

Lighting now flashes
in the sky, ready to break
this August heatwave. I haven’t
seen much, but these days,
I understand there are
all kinds of lives.




untitled

It’s mid-May when the seagulls
circle above Gibraltarstraat
in the evenings
around sunset, which is late
at this time of year.

The sky is pink, and if I ignore
my eyeline’s bottom half—
the unadorned balcony rails
and makeshift terraces
our Bos en Lommer
neighbours have fashioned
from rusted lawn chairs
and asphalt roofs—

and focus on the seagulls
calling, circling the pink sky,
I can almost smell the seawater
and imagine
I’m somewhere else.




Vietnam

When evening hits
Sài Gòn, the air
is suggestive of rain.
My mother and I huddle
under newspapers
and rusted tin awnings
while the streets of
Sài Gòn go on.

In Vinh, I visit
my grandparents’ tombs,
surrounded by framed faces
of my ancestors,
my mother beside me,
the incense, the afternoon heat,
and her lips moving silently
under the umbrella.

In Hà Nội, the click
clack of wooden sticks
that signal
passing food vendors
and the smell
of motorbike exhaust
waft through the open
window at 4 a.m.

Jet lagged, I join my mother
in her bed to watch the view
from her window.
Morning begins early
here; quietly,
we peel the green scales
off sugar-apples
and suck on their seeds.




Phonology

The man in Mỹ Tho who takes
my hand, helping me into his boat,
asks me my name.

“Tu-Linh”, I say and my mother laughs,
repeats “Tú-Linh”
with the proper rising tone.

These subtle tones dip and rise,
are glottal stops or breathy sighs.
I’m silent now along the Mekong Delta

as we glide over the rusty-tan water
through an archway of water-coconut trees,
their long, reaching palm leaves.