Donna
Masini: Poems
My
Mother Makes Me a Geisha Girl |
Nights My Father | Wheel
of Fortune
 Donna
Masini's book of poems, That Kind of Danger, won the Barnard
Women Poet's Prize in 1994 and was published by Beacon Press.
Her novel, About Yvonne, was published by W.W. Norton.
Her newest book of poetry, titled A Chain of Such Longing,
will appear from W.W. Norton in 2004. Masini is a recipient of
an NEA and a New York Foundation for the Arts grant. Her poems
have appeared in TriQuarterly, the Paris Review, Georgia Review,
Parnassus, Boulevard, and many other periodicals. She is a
full time professor in the MFA Creative Writing program at Hunter
College and teaches poetry workshops at Columbia University. She
has also taught at The Writer's Voice in Manhattan. She has read
her poems on campuses throughout the Metropolitan area. Donna
Masini is a life long New Yorker who grew up in Brooklyn. She
is a graduate of Hunter College and New York University. Her work
has been praised for his communicative power and emotional strength.
Her writing has been described as stark and sensual, energetic
and intimate. She deals with urban, working-class passions with
moral strength and generosity. Her poetry is both visceral and
transcendent. Donna Masini is the Distinguished Poet Judge for
the Annual Bordighera Poetry Prize of $2000
and bilingual book publication for 2003-2004.
Poems
from That Kind of Danger, (Beacon Press: Boston.) Copyright
©2001 by Donna Masini:
My
Mother Makes Me a Geisha Girl
It
is Halloween. 1962. Brooklyn.
It
is late October. Afternoon light
seeps
through venetian blinds.
I
am eight years old. My mother is
making
me up. My mother is making me
a
geisha girl, rubbing white paint
across
my face, my ears, down my throat.
Under
her hands, my head
tilts.
She works me over, licks
the
tip of the Maybelline liner, marks
a
black arch across my brow, adding
the
years, filling in what she knows
should
be there, the exotic
curve
of the eye, hooking
toward
the hairline, mole dot below
the
lower lip. With a slim brush
she
traces red into my lips, experience
paints
in the sex. Blue shadows. Green shadows.
One
hand twisting the hair from the nape
of
my neck, she grips the bobby pins
in
her mouth, talks through the narrow slit
in
her teeth. Hold still, she says,
and
blot and blink.
She
lightens, darkens, leaves
a
pi 'le of my mouths on crumpled Kleenex.
She
is back
in
1947. Coney Island. A ride
called
the Caterpillar, strapped by her date
in
her seat. The lights go down, the puckered
larva
begins to close, the boy
wraps
his arm around her; she has waited
for
this moment all her life: lipstick fresh,
stocking
seams straight, her stomach flutters, she
stiffens,
feels the vomit rising, she smiles
sinking,
thinking this is not right, the Caterpillar
crawls
through the tunnel, worms in the dark,
vomit
rising, she backing away. This she tells me
as
if to say the body knows. My body
does
not know how to move in this pink
satin
kimono she wraps about me. I choke
in
the sweet cloud of her
Evening
in Paris she sprays through my hair,
daubs
at my throat. The body knows.
What
my mother knows works on her, working on me.
Mincing
steps, intricate hipwork. I can't
roll
like the curve of my mother. She belts
me
in, making a waist where no waist is.
My
mother shows me how to be sexy.
Shows
me my face in the oval mirror. I look
like
a doll, all powder and posing,
wanting
my own eyes back. How many faces I am.
I
hunker down into a small knot,
a
dark place where faces float
belly
up like bloated fish. The girl
in
the mirror is crying, her mother yelling
white
paint smearing steamy shadows rolling
down
mixing red blue black green.
Nights
My Father
We
never knew exactly what our father did
in
dark basements, late into the night.
His
work clothes, cellar smells.
The
dark came out of him.
Dirt
green, creased black,
ACE
in big red letters
a
yellow diamond stitched across his back,
below
the earth with rats and tar,
roaches,
spiders, waterbugs.
Only
he knew the way out.
Underground
by the oilburners
where
the heat went dead
he
crawled into iron mouths
hauled
out fists Of oily sludge.
Could
a man get trapped in there?
Scars,
creases where grease seeped in, never came out,
thick
soot worms under his nails,
he
rolled the hose from tanks to valves
ladies,
alligators curled in basements.
When
the harbor froze he slept on the floor by his truck.
In
the middle of the night there was something
in
our kitchen,
rattling
through the silverware
in
our kitchen drawer.
In
the gold night light, a bear,
The
thick fur breathing.
I
amimed a gun, I shot.
The
fur parted.
It
was my father. His good suit pressed
But
the hands stuck out: greasy hands,
So
black the creases darkened as he washed them.
He
didn't need anyone. He could di it alone.
Boildrs
humming, clanging, air banging, heart buiilding.
There
she goes, he'd yell,
At
the center of the earth, where the heat is, and rough hands,
Men's
hands. The way they touch.
Warm
;men with rough hands
Cha-cha
bossa nova
The
snoring comes from that place,
Low
sounds in the body makes.Our father heated people in winter
And
he danced our mother
With
the grace of a bear,
Iumder
red bulbs,
By
the Christmas tree
The
pudding black, so black,
A
cake of shaking oil.
I
remember him in winter
Mornings
when I wake,
The
bridge hanging across the street in the snow
Trucks
skidding, whispering in the icy sun.
The
whispers from the bedroom,
The
creaking of the floor, the whispers,
The
dark something dropping, then he snorted through the night
Water
dripped, radiators popped.
Don't
touch him, we screamed
As
he came through the door,
'my
head in his work clothes.
The
dark coming out.
All
night the glazy stare at the TV set.
Heart.
Get it going. He begins to stamp ans steam.
He
went under, down under streets, gratings
The
places men went.
Could
a man get trapped in there?
Graves.
Caves. Boilers. Crawling.
Nights
I heard him humming.
Wheel
of Fortune
for
Mauro Masini (1896-1988)
My
grandfather is watching Vanna White.
His
loose shirt exposes the bones of his neck.
He
stares from the TV to his prayerbook and back.
He
is dying.
He
sinks into his ninety-two years
dreaming
already another place.
One
turn of the wheel and he floats out,
Vanna
moves forward, shimmers
like
a terrible fish,
her
voracious smile a revelation of teeth.
I
reach out to touch him
his
shoulders bird-weak, brittle.
I
want to build his village around him, of air and chicken
and
pig,
the
soft Tuscan earth.
I
face backward to speak to him.
He
is a wheel broke loose, spinning out,
his
children tethered to the spokes trying to hold him.
A
long time ago in a place far away . . .
so
his stories begin. We ate chestnutflour,
raised
silkworms, chickens.
I
left for America with my brothers.
Brooklyn.
Old home of Italialn and Jews.
The
streets. West Indian now,
Widening
their legs to take in the new,
The
old Granada Theater a Baha'i church.
Where
are the cracks you tarred?
Young
man, new beard, walking the streets of an alien city.
Old
man whirling through old space
Grasping
a wheel,
Scattering
prayerbook pages across Flatbush Avenue.
The
gold band slips from his finger, too thin now;
The
weight of its sixty-five years no longer secures him.
He's
letting it all go-zippers, pajama tops, bowels, and
grandchildren.
In
a Tuscan village a garden of tombstones, photographs-
my
people MASINI carved on a churchyard wall,
terra
cotta floor, floor his father laid, tile by tile.
The
land he worked. The people he left.
I
already miss the particular and definite
movements
of his fingers
squeezing
a bag of sugar and cream,
the
muscular arm stirring a pot of polenta,
the
cheeses, the fruits, the bowl of strewwed prunes,
sign
of the corss over a handful of pills.
Dante,
Recipes. Ave Maria.
He
is a child now,
Close
to beginnings.
He
is younger than I am.
Ninety-two
years is not long enough.
He
lifts his legs, raises
his
prayerbook to the TV screen,
looks
up at me, blinking, expectant.
The
wheel if turning
Wist,
I want to whisper, say your good-byes.
Good-bye
to Villa, il Volto Santo, the church on the hill,
to
terra cotta, mortadella, Lucca, Firenze.
Good-bye
Giovanni, Filiberto, Pietro, and Laura.
the
boats that carried you to New York and the boats you
followed
going back.
Good-bye
to the 1910, Ellis Island, Oliver Street,
the
boccie courts where you found your old tongue
The
Italian Bronx where you discovered your wife,
her
quick hands, her superstitions and fears.
Good-bye
to Canal Street, dishwasher jobs
the
German baker who taught you:
breathe
life into dough-let it rise.
Good-bye
to nightshifts and train rides to Brooklyn,
to
Holy Cross Church, bamboo cane down Flatbush Aveenuye,
weak
legs, unsteady hands.
good-bye
to novenas and rosaries, holy cards, candles
to
Gloria, Hugo, Bruno, Diana.
Good-bye
to the oak chest.
Good-bye
to the courtyards you tarred
the
stone steps you painted,
the
grandchildren who chipped them with stoopball and sticks.
The
wheel is turning.
My
grandfather is sleeping.
Basta
Dormi
in pace ora
Dante.
Recipes. Ave Maria.
Poems
from That Kind of Danger. Beacon Press: Boston. Copyright
© by Donna Masini. All rights reserved.
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