1522 Mason Street, San Francisco, 1969
Years later, I still hear the continuous
steel cable, vibrating in the groove
under Mason Street, Uncle Gary sobbing
because someone at the Laundromat stole
my diapers, his room pulsing
with nervous music.
No one told me he left home until the day
I scuttled from the smack
of my mother's slipper,
& she dragged me from under his empty bed.
I think of Grandma praying faster,
me looking under her skirt while she lit
offerings to our ancestors, her thick legs
rough with veins, the beige stockings
sagging under the pull of garters.
She always loved me best.
Uncle Gary had hitchhiked East to study teeth.
Sometimes, when no one was home
& you could hear the crackling
of mah jong tiles shuffled next door,
Grandma, Grandpa, & I watched strippers on TV.
I remembered Grandpa saying, American
women will do anything while
the melon-breasted blonde
with a face like Kim Novak, pulled
a feather boa back &
forth across her bottom.
I can remember the night Uncle Gary choked
on a fishbone because he didn't learn to eat
his fish heads right, Auntie Joyce poured
vinegar down his throat to make him throw up,
& Uncle Lealand hurled his chopsticks,
chipping a plate because the baby wouldn't stop
wailing. No one told the landlady
we had ten people crammed into three rooms
or that Great Grandma smoked & slept
in the hall closet. That night, Grandpa,
blind & bulging with irritation, flung
the radio into the clanging cold.
Priscilla Lee
My family visiting my Great Uncle in the Berkeley Hills, 1970 Uncle Lealand, me (posing in my buckle shoes), Auntie Joyce, Brenton (being carried), Mom, Dad, Sherilyn (with the cash register toy), my Great Grandmother, my Grandmother, Auntie Claire, and Uncle Tom
My cousin Brenton, me, and my sister Sherilyn. Me the beauty queen.
We are sitting on the sofa that doubled as our trampoline: Sherilyn, Ellison, me, and Brenton