Jennifer Chang




Fables




1.


Eleanor’s maple insisted
otherwise, flushed with rage, and then
shed. Now, the alley our houses share
flames red with maple leaves.


Six months gone, she
sold the house to very tall
brothers, mere children. I watch
the tallest brothers


pass around a silver
ball, singing But I want
a golden ball, a golden
kitchen, golden penmanship,


more gold, more. I want more and
more gold. Soon the ball
sang along with the boys,
a silver ball


with a golden tongue.
I had no gold,
but I had a brother
with whom I never played.




2.


There was nothing between us is what I remember.


We were poorest my first winter.


I wept into the night, so I’ve heard, my infant skin


inhumanly cold. He stacked wool,


layers of cotton, made
a bed for me while nursing


a fire. Dutifully,
he kept out the smoke. Still


I was choking, choking.
Our parents made him


steward of the yard. To me,


this was a field where no deer roamed.


Pussywillow grew on the margins,
birds hiding in hydrangea. I held
warm feathers, my hands


warmed by constant cooing. Pigeons, some
misdirected wrens. I grew


without effort,
stewarded by a brother,


our lives made small


by trees from other
yards. Winter bared all.


What faith I had in green things,
this spark


of breath, a promise against dying, I
yielded all to winter.




3.


Today the brothers are climbing


Eleanor’s maple,


and I am watching them again.


Some days they look like men,


wielding a sense


of dominion. Arms outstretching


the tallest branches, they reach


rooftops, reign our city


until it is theirs.  


I, too, have a plot of nature.


No grass grows here, and I’ve


trimmed the crepe myrtle, containing


its rude splendor every spring.


This is not to say I am a good neighbor.


I say hello when I am seen.


Sometimes the brothers nod


and smile. Sometimes chaos


skins them, vicious flickers


of sport that make them wholly


indistinguishable. The sport


or the body, the brother


or the other, their doing


an undoing or their undoing


all done. The question


might ask who or what, but


I am not asking the question.


I am watching them again.




4.


Which is to say,
a woman named Eleanor once lived here.
Once she explained my crepe myrtle to me,
how it flowers to excess
then collapses under so much ornament.
Shyly, I commended her tree. (It was finally summer.)
Yes, she deposed. Thank you, she complied.


A woman named Eleanor once lived here.