HARDCORE VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS

hardcore volleyball players
know how to drown themselves;
they focus on the opponent and everything else sits on the surface,
crowd cheering against them, children crying for attention, not to mention the dehydration screaming out for nourishment, through all these
still they anchor themselves in the game

hardcore volleyball players,
play as though their life depended on it,
no matter how many sprang ankles, color blue coded knees, torn Achilles,
second degree burns, ashes sittin in a urn, bodies positioned on flat-lines,
wives giving new lives, they play as though these things were non-existent
you’ll always find them in every state, rec-center, month or New Year celebration

hardcore volleyball players
don’t say too many prayers,
their only wish is to grace their opponent in the face with a spike,
making them cry out hymns of fright.
They don’t ask for forgiveness because its pointless to repent the sins that will only be committed again, so they breathe with the guilt and live through every serve b’coz every serve is another chance

Hardcore volleyball women
don’t care what they look like… at least not when they’re in the court
oily face striped skin, 360 degree spins, sweat dripping from back side between ass cracks, unmatched socks, tattoos and tobacco
Skin covered with salt, like Minnesota winter asphalt, they are cold. unaffectionate, the temperature of frozen rain, smudged with dirt and stains scarred from
two day tournaments, domestic bruises, stretched out with all night parties,
beer and bicardi
rotating urges to dink

Hardcore volleyball men
are quiet. They don’t ask for much in life, not even from their girlfriends. They drink beers, shots, drive nice acuras out of their parking lots. they sit at home and watch LOST or shop for another pair of jordans not worrying about the cost. They religiously have faith, but their faith is not religious. They wear polka dot boxers and shovel snow in shorts. And in the off season they play basketball

Hardcore volleyball players like my older sisters have dreams of returning to court, calla lilies, baby’s breath and freedom from everyone else’s touch

years later,
in a public high school in Denver, Co
I sixpack my first face in gym class,
The coach asked me why I didn’t try out for the school team,
winning streak, state finals, medals galore, friends indeed, varsity,
traveling, diversity

hardcore volleyball players
know, what their role on a team is

they strategize through different rotations, 5-1,6-2,
militaristic formations brought up by westernization,
constantly changing rules, everything done through quick rallying,
not enough time to see who the real winning team should be

hardcore volleyball players,
make it a family affair. they bring their 15 children and 7 wives,
girlfriends but only on the sly

hardcore volleyball players,
need thicker lines.
they don’t know boundaries until they’ve already crossed them

---

Poem: To: That old lady

To that old lady
who had a river of sons
drowned her luck in a piece of silver
to make a plantation of opium
and farm animals

To that old lady
who prospers as the empress of her table
guiding her sons in the right direction
Left- Left----Left-right-- Left,
pricking her teeth clean,
digging out the unnecessary
before decaying starts

To that old lady
queen of knives,
her sharpness surpasses
any sheath of a king.
Sharpened for survival and beyond

To that old lady, who carries
hundred pound struggles in her
heart, mind, bones, like a whisper
and pours it like fuel igniting life

To that old lady who
dreams in eternity
of crashing waves,
rippling her mistakes
across the bodies of water
her grandchildren will swim

To that old lady who
was forced into marriage
and still set off sailing for
riches without navigation lights

To that old lady who
never learned to read, write,
type, write a bike, or drive,

the movement is in your walk,
the pounding is out of your chest,
the writing is on your skin,
the reading is in your body

To that old lady who
will never have a mausoleum
for her offspring to bury her in,

You Will Rest Everywhere

---

Uncle’s visit

My uncle once came to visit us.

When he came, we the kids, the younger ones, who didn’t know any better would jump up with excitement and say txiv ntxawm koj lug lawm los!!!!
We would give him hugs as though he had survived some kind of war, freed a million generations, broke free from his grave.

Our hearts would praise his arrival and we’d hop around him, rejoicing him, as though he was a king- and he waited for his feast.

My sisters and my mother prepared a meal.
They deep fried chicken and pork.
They made beef jerky.
They made qaab ci.
There were two kinds of rice, mov txhua and mov nplaum ntsaav
and one bowl of zaub ntsuab.
which I never ate, that was something only my parents ate.
I remember it was a meal involving mostly oil,

because after uncle ate the meal, we didn’t have any napkins (at least that’s been my excuse for him to get through my childhood),
or maybe we did, but he didn’t want to use it, he had royal hands.

And so he walked over to the closet,
with his oily hands, from the qaab ci, and the deep fried meat

And there in the closet were
Winter coats, my sisters silk shirt, the one they both shared, my mom’s double shift, my brother’s soccer potential, my dad’s working hands, my brother and his video games, my other sister and her daughter, my halloween costume, my mother’s handkerchiefs the ones she used to hide her beautiful strands, my father’s ties, the ones he only wore to church and my memory

his Hands, gathered all these things together, as though he was rinsing cilantro squeezing them into bundles but there were
too many, that his Godly hands couldn’t hold.

So some of them, most of them slipped away, but the things that got caught, were wiped on.

Uncle’s prints were oiled onto these things

my memory one of them- stained.

I now wonder,
why my parents didn’t say
“damn, that’s fucked up?” Or “what the fuck are you doing?”

of course they didn’t know these words, still don’t. They still struggle to speak english.
But I know they feel them.
And 3 decades later
I feel them.