3 Poems by Jade Hidle
Palimpsest
Squeeze cold Elmer’s
onto my body
That cheeky ox
Leering at me from between
the fingers of your fist.
Layer and let me dry.
Map my history in white.
Peel.
Angle that vellum lattice
Of my skin’s hashmarks
And tributaries
Up to the sunlight,
Between your eyes and it.
See the scars and moles
And the impression of a
Bone that never rejoined
The arm quite right
Because I am a quiet one.
See on my torso in glue
The neck and the chin
Lacquered so tight as
My jaw clenches to defy
The physiognomy of home.
See the dented lower lip
Where hungry crooked teeth
Chewed longing and hunger
And anxiety of hunger.
See how glue hardly webs
To reflect the arc of upper
Lip, it’s the lipid bubbles
Of duck fat that I
Haven’t eaten since leaving
home, but that brown,
Drip, and sizzle glistens
Through years and haven’t
And never. That duck fat
Is in your skin and roots
And tongue licking lips
Licking lips.
See my wide nose
Loomed in glue skin
Poked with precision
Each pore gaping
Because I let sweat
Sediment. I couldn’t
Touch my wide nose
Enough to wash it
Just water between
My skin and itself.
Don’t rip the frayed
Edge where glue
Met my hair. Let it
Curl in light’s heat,
Flap in the gale.
Just don’t let our glue
Silhouette extend
Beyond you and me.
Just go back to
When you told
Me to do and do
Not. Just lay me
Back down to
Glue me.
Again.
Hasta,
Zhidao
Jusqu’a
And
All
The
Books
We read
Together,
All the pages
Cemented Into a
crisp Napoleon, that
Story of what we did to
Each other, InLak’Ech.
I Almost Dated A Guy
Who was from the Navajo reservation.
We worked at an arts and crafts store,
Talking across the cash registers, us
Scanning and beeping those pipe
Cleaners, glitter, beads, paper, plastic—
All these things—between us.
“All these macrame-lovin’ white ladies
Treat me like I’m Mexican,” he said to me.
“Me too,” I nodded from where the job rooted me.
“No, not the same,” he said and turned away.
After closing, we traded registers for brooms,
And I was grateful just to move my legs.
“I hate this fuckin’ job,” and he leaned into me.
“Ain’t nothin’ on the rez, so I’m here. Fuck,
I’m tired of bein’ poor.”
“Me too,” I said, “I—” wanted to tell, to show
Him the projects, the things I stole, the ingrown
Toenails from the too-small shoes,
Things I learned to want to eat, all the things.
Then I remembered
On a road trip through the dry Arizona desert reservation lands, my dad and I
Pulled over. A chain of roadside stands—clouds of powdered sugar sprinkling
Into shiny grease bubbles of fry bread; silver glinting around veined
Turquoise and coral bright and round as wet lychees; feathers hang,
Sway. The jewelry artist sells—has to sell—to me
A spiral that tails into a blue stone. The wind picks up, and she gives me
But doesn’t have to give me: “My grandmother said when the wind blows,
That’s your ancestors all around you. And pushing you around, too.
So, when the wind blows, you’re not alone.”
All this time, I’d been squinting them out, hunching away from them,
All this time, I’d been thinking they were the bad wind
My mom balmed and spoon-scratched out of my back.
He always spoke to me, chin lifted,
Angry and proud.
I told myself,
Me too.
We stayed late
Crawling after beads
Scattered down aisles.
We brushed elbows,
And he asked me out.
I could hear him breathing.
And I—the floor grime creeping
Up my hands, arms, into my mouth
Gagging on these things flooding this
Shitty job that brought together we children
Of refugees, one from across the ocean, the other
On his and his ancestors’ homeland—I said to him, “No.”
He stood, proud and angry,
And I followed. But he passed
Me in this messy aisle, our elbows
Bumped and apron ties flittered away
From each other in the wind created between us.
To Tia Carrera in Wayne’s World
You came out
Red lace tight
Enough to shame
Robert Palmer’s slick
Red-lipped clones
Gyrating in concert—
Their nowhere stare
(I failed mimicking)
You cut through
Pointing, clutching, screaming
Sweet at him,
Your man Wayne—
Pale “zang” fool—
Or Rob Lowe
Feeling so dirty,
But I, your
corner girl, believed
You called me
In Cantonese slices,
Dips, and beckonings.
You are first
To show me
Our Asian tongues—
Don’t just mourn—
Rock power electric
Again again again
The things you
Do to me.
Worn tape licking
Squeaking spools; until,
My mother’s expectation,
Obedience, quiets your
Call to me.
I’d like to
Tell you everything.
My yearning palm
Dampens the cassette
Cover, your face
Reflecting mine another.
You help me
Become the girl
No one ignores—
Girl, boy, me.
You ready, Tia?
Blitz, blitz, blitz.
Jade Hidle (she/her/hers) is the proud Vietnamese-Irish-Norwegian daughter of a refugee. Her travel memoir, The Return to Viet Nam, was published by Transcurrent Press in 2016, and her work has also been featured in Michigan Quarterly Review: Mixtape, Southern Humanities Review, Poetry Northwest, Flash Fiction Magazine, The West Trade Review, Bangalore Review, Columbia Journal, New Delta Review, and the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network’s diacritics.org. You can follow her work at www.jadehidle.com or on Instagram @jadethidle.