Brian Komei Dempster
Drive
Because your father fished for trout in the mountains,
miles between the river and his garage,
we had enough time to pick the lock of the drawer
where he stored the keys. You didn’t back down
from my dare to test his Mustang, any wavering
snuffed out by bong tokes; buried in your big talk
is the threat of him leaving you—even at home
he retreats to a plot of azaleas—the rift between
you and him hidden as the roots he burrowed
into soil, the things he couldn’t expose you to,
deep as the donuts we carved in the greens
of the golf course, blinding as our acceleration
and jump off Laurelhurst Hill, the sparks
of bottoming out, the oil leaking between the row of cones
we weaved through past “Entrance Closed”
into the I-5 express lane while we forgot History,
or most of it, your failed tests on Hanoi, your father
who chases backyard shadows, like minnows, with a pool cue;
and embarrassed by his manic flailing,
we try to capture him through the window.
He never let on if he was searching
for human sounds, a face from his photos
on the beach in the South China Sea
where the dogtags jingled with each volleyball whack.
Like all of us, he tried to go forward
while looking back. As we stared down the road,
we were unsettled by the spilled bong water,
by the blur of skylit stars as our lungs stretched
into an 140 mile per hour scream,
by Eddie Van Halen’s Stratocaster, the vamped flourishes
haunting as your father who charged hills
those first days in Saigon or spiked the ball a winning blow—
like you and me, he found the threshold
of invincible. Our red arrow hit “Low Oil”
and, as steam seeped through the hood, we cruised
on the hope of no surprises, at least not here inside his car
as we strained against the whirr, the curves,
the blocked exits. We hadn’t come down yet
nor did we look ahead to the last push
of the engine, smoke swirling like the voices
that led your father to a bridge
where he’d been wounded, the past he cast away
with pole and bait into the river’s quiet spots,
drawing away from us with his cue stick, his woods chalking
like the tip, sputtering the oil of his Mustang
we abandoned by the side of the road.
We ran not from any siren or twitching fish
or unfinished story, but from him coming home
to trampled azaleas, an empty drawer,
no way for us to restart his car, return its keys,
reclose the war in his head. We ran
from the tools we lacked, the oil we didn’t have,
the engine almost destroyed
and the way it simmered like an unseen enemy—
we ran, suspended in the dark,
between your father and the wreck,
our lives hooked, yet not reeled in.
Gatekeeper
A thousand sutras shelved high,
my grandparents moonlit ink
on pages sheer as veils,
the word Love rescued
from censors. Even in sleep,
I protect our church, my family—
the dream of dead uncles,
our shibas, Hanako and Henry,
barking me awake. A garbage-can
clang, jangling keys, even piano notes
scaling acacias are threats
to the sky-blue comforter,
warmed by Grace as I climb
stairwells and walk halls,
check window-locks
in the nursery where my son Brendan
falls in and out of sleep.
My flashlight vigil leads
to the backyard, to the gate
unmoored from its broken lock—
its wish to be unhinged
grows out of screw and nails,
no longer useful like the homeless
who enter, crack open
prickly crowns of aloe, soothe
their faces with gel, leave
bottle-shards and cigarette butts
burned into our stairs.
The door shakes with night-wind
or cotton fog, any drifter drunk
on malt liquor seeking journey-fare.
When I grab the bat, crouch
behind the peephole, I am calmed
by the altar, my back
to its purple chrysanthemum curtains,
gold-leafed lily pads, rice paper
with corroded holes. Moths fly out
of my grandfather’s paintings,
and I grab at air to repel
the strangeness of other lives
circling toward us.