Grandmother Vignettes
๑
I am three with ambulance sirens lungs.
A screaming mouth, wet with formula,
belting – Khun Yai! – for You, who
went gambling with the girls
across the street.
๒
Hold on tight now —
I am five, face palmed with baby powder
sleep-crusted eyes, pineapple hair,
— Don’t tell your mother —
perched on Your moss-green motorbike,
late for kindergarten again.
๓
Electric racket swinging like a tennis champ.
Mosquitos fizzed, popped at contact, cascading,
— Look, I don’t even want all this bad karma! —
pellets of shadow rain,
— but I’d go to hell if it means you kids
don’t get malaria! —-
๔
The cousins and I are fighting.
We are seven. You are an old God,
counting machetes
lining the kitchen wall.
— One for you
One for him! Go brawl!
I’ll raise whoever lives! —-
๕
What was your first love like, Khun-Yai?
Here, You smell of soil, sweat,
lemongrass. Your face is anger,
love lines. Here, it softens like peeled paint.
Here, You smiled wryly. Mentions a boy.
He called You pretty.
You shook Your head, explaining
being too poor for romance,
marrying at 15 —
๖
I am 15, death
knocks at Your lungs.
There are trips to the hospitals,
trips to the temples.
There are prayers and doctors.
Your shaking hand feeding
me mouthfuls of rice, metal spoon
scraping the roof of my mouth.
Here, You smell antiseptic,
medicine, chemo —
๗
Mom mentioned Your hesitation,
Amid the undressing of Your flesh —
Out of the eight grandchildren,
It was me You worried for --
Was it because of our twinning
anger and love lines?
How the problem with Tiger
Women is that we are more suns
than daughters?
At the funeral, Your face was not Your face.
No fire though the softness stayed.
The coroner painted Your lips petal pink
(cancer must have him confused
Your crimson, a Panthera Tigris’s yawning red
for the underbelly of a dying fish).
Uncle Tong passes me the small tin cup.
Here, I wash Your face for the last time.
Here, we watch Your ash confetti in gray streaks,
muddying an eggshell sky —
๙
You've been coming to me in dreams.
Eyes angry same gentle body.
Here, I am 23.
I can't tell if it's You
or the meds I take to quiet the ghosts I inherited.
Are You a caution? A gentle peck?
A check-in?
A phantom?
๑๐
Jun-Jow says she sees You too,
Watching us by the banana tree.
Hesitation again or just a visit, Khun-Yai?
Is it pride or plights that sent You here?
๑๐
I am 25 today. I am sorry I quit my job --
to keep you alive in poetry. I am sorry --
I am all fire, no resolutions. A Tiger
Woman through and through. Does it soothe
or sour You to know, I am a twinning blaze --
tracing Your anger and love lines?
I am three with ambulance sirens lungs.
A screaming mouth, wet with formula,
belting – Khun Yai! – for You, who
went gambling with the girls
across the street.
๒
Hold on tight now —
I am five, face palmed with baby powder
sleep-crusted eyes, pineapple hair,
— Don’t tell your mother —
perched on Your moss-green motorbike,
late for kindergarten again.
๓
Electric racket swinging like a tennis champ.
Mosquitos fizzed, popped at contact, cascading,
— Look, I don’t even want all this bad karma! —
pellets of shadow rain,
— but I’d go to hell if it means you kids
don’t get malaria! —-
๔
The cousins and I are fighting.
We are seven. You are an old God,
counting machetes
lining the kitchen wall.
— One for you
One for him! Go brawl!
I’ll raise whoever lives! —-
๕
What was your first love like, Khun-Yai?
Here, You smell of soil, sweat,
lemongrass. Your face is anger,
love lines. Here, it softens like peeled paint.
Here, You smiled wryly. Mentions a boy.
He called You pretty.
You shook Your head, explaining
being too poor for romance,
marrying at 15 —
๖
I am 15, death
knocks at Your lungs.
There are trips to the hospitals,
trips to the temples.
There are prayers and doctors.
Your shaking hand feeding
me mouthfuls of rice, metal spoon
scraping the roof of my mouth.
Here, You smell antiseptic,
medicine, chemo —
๗
Mom mentioned Your hesitation,
Amid the undressing of Your flesh —
Out of the eight grandchildren,
It was me You worried for --
Was it because of our twinning
anger and love lines?
How the problem with Tiger
Women is that we are more suns
than daughters?
At the funeral, Your face was not Your face.
No fire though the softness stayed.
The coroner painted Your lips petal pink
(cancer must have him confused
Your crimson, a Panthera Tigris’s yawning red
for the underbelly of a dying fish).
Uncle Tong passes me the small tin cup.
Here, I wash Your face for the last time.
Here, we watch Your ash confetti in gray streaks,
muddying an eggshell sky —
๙
You've been coming to me in dreams.
Eyes angry same gentle body.
Here, I am 23.
I can't tell if it's You
or the meds I take to quiet the ghosts I inherited.
Are You a caution? A gentle peck?
A check-in?
A phantom?
๑๐
Jun-Jow says she sees You too,
Watching us by the banana tree.
Hesitation again or just a visit, Khun-Yai?
Is it pride or plights that sent You here?
๑๐
I am 25 today. I am sorry I quit my job --
to keep you alive in poetry. I am sorry --
I am all fire, no resolutions. A Tiger
Woman through and through. Does it soothe
or sour You to know, I am a twinning blaze --
tracing Your anger and love lines?
About the Author
Blue Rachapradit is a poet and interdisciplinary artist from Thailand. Her works excavate societal and historical silences of Thai womanhood and how patriarchal institution invade feminine and environmental bodies which are often coded as analogous and objectified under the patriarchy. Other than pulling iconology from Thai folk beliefs she often uses cosmic horror as an aesthetic tool to explore these topics to illustrate how fear of the monstrous female is induced not by the evil of the spectacle but by the ignorance of the beholder.