Water Weight
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco
a
right hand pointing
chapbook
copyright 2018 by Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco
cover by Dale Wisely
Acknowledgements
“Water weight” first appeared in Eunoia Review; “The Old Dam” first appeared in The Potomac Review; “Tropical Ken Finds the Ocean” and “Measuring” first appeared in The Lake; a version of “Herring” first appeared in Gnarled Oak; and “Line” first appeared in Red River Review.
water weight
how much you had to
lose
Four Mouths Deep
We would line bottles
on the counter:
four mouths deep.
You said
it sounded like a fortress,
and I thought fast
and said oceans,
but I didn’t have
the time to get much
further:
blank fish
bodies,
and the plants
no one had named.
We never got those bottles
back, the two of us,
or anything.
Tropical Ken Finds the Ocean
What did you
think, as the water
found the joints
of everything, and foamed
and churned: sand wave then sand
fusing together
and the sounds became the ocean
and the fish
tossed like bright
capes, and then the little boy
who’d held you
was a doll, too small
to see.
The Old Dam
The old dam comes up
like bones
out of the water
so it looks
like it is rising:
a dull cry.
It is your mother’s
cancer coming back,
and the thin beam
of her arm
around your waist.
This is the way
you knew.
You sit next
to Lake McClure
and the sun
marks out your outline
on the gravel.
Crows: Part 1
The crows remembered
you:
hunching
over, with your backpack
like a baby
and your hair stuck to your cheeks.
They stood waiting
on the fence outside the school, but
they said
nothing.
Herring
If they are right
and the ocean fills the street
I’ll shut
the door
and watch
for herring
out the window. (Schools
of silver, chandeliers
of thinning
rain.)
Half a Religion
My son wants to catch
the fish —
just eyes
and spine —
next to the boat
launch, so we stand
knee-deep in water,
where they gather,
half-clear souls,
and we are too
big for their world,
wider than rocks,
than fallen oars,
our skin faint
longing in the small waves,
and they swim away
from us,
joining and breaking,
joining, breaking.
Crows: Part 2
In your room,
ten years later, we leaned back
against the wall
passing a bottle of cheap wine
back and forth.
You said that once
you found a dead crow
in the field behind your house
and watched the others
mourning it —
a small crazed group
with bright hard
eyes.
You said its wings
lifted lightly
in the wind.
arms
of submerged lake grass
campfire ghosts
dive boat
fish swim through
our shadows
Castro Street
Light and fog. Old curtains
in the windows
and the men
walking back home after the bars.
(They brought flowers
when a neighbor died,
sprays of perfect
roses.)
Crows: Part 3
Crows live everywhere, these
days.
When you had gone,
I rolled the windows down
and watched the crows pick things:
styrofoam and bread and trashed
receipts. Their wingbeats echoed
through the parking lot
like slaps.
Measuring
How much
of my father
was his drive
home every night
the burr
of radio, the sun
held beneath
buildings,
and the road
he never looked at
spinning
carefully
away?
Red Crabs
I have re-
remembered them
as little dancers, their
smooth movements
just like ribbons
pulled apart.
Line
Someone else buried you;
they sent us
pictures.
There: your ashes
a thin mist
above a stranger’s
white-gloved hand.
There: the blue line
of the ocean, like a space
to write your name.
back to top
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco lives in California's Central Valley, where she works as a librarian and co-edits One Sentence Poems. Her two previous chapbooks, Various Lies and Lion Hunt, are available from Finishing Line Press and Plan B Press, respectively.