Magical Realism in America

We made our childhood tree a kitchen 

and a real estate office, a karate dojo 

and a radio station. We rubbed wild chives 

into pine needles and baked them until they 

ran copper under the Pennsylvanian sun.

At night in the moonshine, my grandfather steers 

his balcony from India to America and crosses two oceans 

to descend to the land of this tree. He is tall, 

and his gait, slow and methodical, looks as if 

he's playing chess with air. He packs plastic cards 

in his pocket and a note from my grandmother 

to instruct me on my smart mouth. I offer him 

our onion pines, our scallion trees. He puts down 

a three of hearts and kisses Judith atop her head. 

I tell him all the bad things I will do 

when I am older and he sits, bony knees pointing, 

one east, one west. Remember the robin eggs, 

he asks and I am ashamed. I had taken them inside 

and tried to hatch them with a hair dryer.

Blue, spotted oval planets. I held that dryer like a gun.

And when the yolk slipped through the crack, 

I was devastated. Listen, I hate poems 

about birds and grandparents and childhood friends.

I hate poems about birds and grandparents 

and childhood friends almost as much 

as I hate poems that break the fourth wall 

like a cheeky high school play. It's just too easy.

But my grandfather's grave is in Goa and now Judith 

has two kids so they must be summoned 

somehow when I am terrible.

The three of us buried those sibling shells 

under our childhood tree, the canopy just long enough 

to cover my shame. No. The poem can't end here.

I'm sure he parted the branches and let in daylight.

Even sour light, he might say, is light.

-Megan Fernandes, ‘I Do Everything I’m Told’

On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance

Breathe deep even if it means you wrinkle
your nose from the fake-lemon antiseptic

of the mopped floors and wiped-down
doorknobs. The freshly soaped necks

and armpits. Your teacher means well,
even if he butchers your name like

he has a bloody sausage casing stuck
between his teeth, handprints

on his white, sloppy apron. And when
everyone turns around to check out

your face, no need to flush red and warm.
Just picture all the eyes as if your classroom

is one big scallop with its dozens of icy blues
and you will remember that winter your family

took you to the China Sea and you sank
your face in it to gaze at baby clams and sea stars

the size of your outstretched hand. And when
all those necks start to crane, try not to forget

someone once lathered their bodies, once patted them
dry with a fluffy towel after a bath, set out their clothes

for the first day of school. Think of their pencil cases
from third grade, full of sharp pencils, a pink pearl eraser.

Think of their handheld pencil sharpener and its tiny blade.

—Aimee Nezhukumatathil, ‘Oceanic’ published by Copper Canyon Press