I. son
i am my mother's boy
who knows which teflon pans
can take the abrasive green of
a scotch brite sponge
whose face was spared the
potent accutane but not
the persistent whiteheads

mamma, sage and skeptic
who tells me things like
"to bury a parent is an honor,
but to bury a child is a curse"
if such things are to believed,
mamma holds the esteem and
privilege of a queen because
she buried both parents before
she could finish her roaring 20s
but also because she planted her
roots firm and coaxed a flourishing
garden kingdom from the scorched
plains of her own fragile fig-heart

i am my father's son
who is enamored with knowing
my brain ever-hungry for knowledge
my father who phones colleagues on drives
when there is nothing to say
or listens to npr and old malayalam songs,
fuzzy and wailing, when the gap
between us feels too far to bridge

dada, whose hair-trigger temper
i am said to have inherited
only he seethes in stoic solemnity
and i decompose, curdle and sour into
bitter words i'm not sure i don't mean
dada who, if **** hit the fan and the
plane was going down, would strap
the elastics of oxygen masks behind
the ears of others before his own;
reckless selflessness in everything

dada says that in his eyes,
i am still the wrinkled, delicate
bundle of flesh he took home
on march 10th, 2005
mamma says i am the first child
she has ever held and the first child
she has ever loved

the tectonics of arguments:
convergence with dada
brings only the buckling of earth
the creation of new ridges until
we are separate continents
subsidence with mamma
where deceit leads to a sinking
and my rebellion is made into
magma once more, simmering
dormant beneath the surface

i say i love you to my parents
especially during these arguments
because god forbid their lives
are cut short and all that was
and all that will ever be was
punctuated simply, indefinitely,
with two terrible semicolons;
i want to live without regret
and celebrate them in my
remembrance

i say i love you
but it’s difficult to say
“i’m sorry”

ii. material love
i tell you that love is as material
as it is immaterial:

i tell you that love
is the sore corners of our mouths
marred and slit open by the plastic
of dime a dozen fruit-flavored freeze pops
cold and sticky on sun-ironed skin
the heat-ironed fuse bead memorial plaque
buried with dexter the dead pet fish
in the sloped backyard of my old house

foil wrapped over-toasted peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches clutched in the cold hands
of my family, seated in a dusty gold nissan minivan
at 6:30 in the morning, dressed in our sunday best
on the way to church in the bleak midwinter

i'm from
crumpled bounce dryer sheets
redolent with soapy softener
heady pine-sol wet on bathroom tiles

i'm from
knees skinned on bus stop pavement
kiss it better, dust it off
keloid trinkets of my childhood

i'm from the spice and burn of liquor
miniatures on my grandfather's breath
the scent of ഏത്തക്ക അപ്പം frying on the deck
turmeric-tinted oil clinging to paper towels

i'm from fiddling with shoelaces for an eternity
because my clumsy fingers didn't have the dexterity
to coax the bunny around the tree and into its den

i'm from mamma having us stuff loose change into
cardboard coin rolls weeks before christmas,
so that santa would have a down payment for
our presents, even when we lived paycheck to paycheck

i'm from smuggling aunt jemima syrup under the dining table
with the matte finish that raised the hairs on my arms when scratched
to sip in clandestine corn syrup paradise

i'm from mac n' cheese and hot dogs
marauchen chicken-flavored instant ramen
with ice cubes so as to not scald my
young and unseasoned tongue

i'm from learning to ride a bike in the
parking lot of the local middle school
while my parents camped out in the
trunk of our old toyota highlander
racing birds, squirrels, anything that
dared so much as to breathe with
a childish eagerness, ever-chasing
the boundless oblivion of sunset
the violent shaking of training wheels
setting the tempo to my mayhem

i'm from getting fitted for a bonded zirconium tooth
not long after flipping over the handlebars of a bike
long after taking the training wheels off
(maybe i forgot to keep my head out of the clouds
or perhaps the clouds out of my head)

i'm from sonic chili cheese anything
on thursday schoolnights,
and fistfuls of arby's curly fries clenched
between tiny fingers as we watched
planes take off from the trunk of our car,
flying,
     flying,
          flying,
yaw, pitch, roll like badminton birdies
eclipsing crayola-blue skies
like sly fireflies evading mason jar capture
zipping through sleepy nights

i am rooted with conviction
in pennsylvania piedmont
(rich, chalky with minerality)
and transient like lamplight fire
dancing on houston bayous
in a mid-spring's twilight

in the strokes of my father
tracing the കുരിശ് on my
forehead after a nightmare

i am from syllogism and shortcomings
a student of disappointment but
always a child of love