Now I will learn how to tie an apron and unclasp
my bra from behind. I will become hard,
like a moss-covered rock. I’ll be stiff as a nightgown

dried on the line. When the pond freezes over, I’ll walk
to its center and lie face up until it is May
and I am floating. I’ll become an anchor
pitched skyward. I will steer chiseled ships,

spinning fortune’s splintered wheel. I will worry
over damp stones. I will clean ash
from the Madonna’s cheek using the wet

rag of my tongue. I’ll make myself shrine-like
and porcelain; I will stand still as a broken clock.
I will be sore from lovemaking. I will become so large,
my hair, loosened, will be mistaken for the swallow’s cave.

After June, there is a year of forgetting, after the forgetting,
antlers adorn the parlor walls. Then it snows, and I’ll be
coarse. I’ll be soft as my mother’s teeth. I’ll be sugar crystals

and feathery snow. I’ll be fine. I will melt.
I will make children from office paper. They’ll be cut
from my stomach wearing blank faces. Bald
and silent, they will come out of me: triplicates

holding hands. I will smooth their foreheads
with a cool iron. I will fold the tepid laundry, turn down
the sheets, then sleepwalk along the Mississippi
until it is ocean and I’m its muddy saint. I will baptize
myself in silt and December. I will become
a pungent, earthly bulb. I’ll pillar to salt. I’ll remember
the pain of childbirth, remember being born.

Ama Codjoe

Skiing season has just ended and I am feeling nostalgic already. I still want to ski and snowboard. My wife already bought Epic passes for all of us for the next season. Eight more months should pass by quick.

We are now heading back to the skate parks for rollerblading and scootering. Đạo still blades a bit. Đán just stops and he’s the best one out of all of us. What a waste of talent. Xuân is still very active with scooting. He progresses each day. I hope he keeps going and not losing momentum. He and I are the only two in the family who are still interested in going to the skate parks.

My blading has peaked. I haven’t learn any new techniques and I have been hesitated to take risks. I still enjoy blading though. I am thinking of giving skateboarding a try since I really love snowboarding. I haven’t been to an ice rink for months. I probably forget all of my figure-skating techniques. I’ll try to get back to it in a bit, but the weather is so nice out and the skate parks are always free. A public ice skating session costs $15 an hour. An hour on ice is nothing.

Đán is also giving up on piano. He no longer wants to practice. He doesn’t value the cost of private lessons we give him. I wanted to give piano a try, but I don’t want to spend $90 an hour for private lessons.

A few times a week, Yiadom-Boakye
painstakingly cuts oil paintings she believes
aren’t up to snuff. Instead of re-priming
the canvas, she reduces it to 2 X 2 ½ meter
pieces. She begins again. This isn’t
an ars poetica. Once, I made love in daylight.

It was a Saturday or Sunday in November
or July. My lover and I stumbled toward
the bedroom, turning our mouths
and our stalk-like waists. I don’t remember
if I undressed myself. The edge of the bed felt
precipitous. I’ve forgotten almost everything

about that day except the competing limbs
of kissing, walking, fucking-how confused
my feet were until, at last, they did not
touch the floor. It was my fault, I wanted so
little. This is not a love poem. Not a catalogue
of attempts. Yiadom-Boakye doesn’t set her figures

in time or place. They are composites of photographs,
magazine cut-outs, and the occasional life drawing.
She doesn’t call them portraits. When she scissors
her failures into unmendable bits, she aims
to deter scavengers and thieves.
In the room where I write this, my hands
smell like Ginger Gold apples. For hours,
I’ve been looking out the window—staring
into the hallway we took to my bedroom. I know
the sky is a blue wall. I know the walls
were sky blue. Memory paints them yellow.
I’ll keep this revision. The rest I’ve thrown away.

Ama Codjoe

My Dearest Đạo,

It’s hard to believe our first-born turns 14 today. You are well-liked in school as well as scouting and you have friends in both places.

I am glad to see that you don’t get bullied or discriminated against for being an Asian American. When I was your age, I faced both; therefore, I dreaded going to school. Everyday seemed long as hell. Maybe I got picked on because my English was not good.

Speaking of school, I hope you are doing well. I haven’t checked on your assignments because I want you to be independent and to be responsible for your own work. You still need to get better at staying on tasks.

At home, you get along with Đán the most. I wish you treat Xuân and Vương better. Even if they annoy you, they are still your baby brothers. I want you to love and protect them. You are always a big brother they will look up to.

As for your mother, you, and me, we are getting along fine for the most part. Well, happy birthday, my son!

Love,
Dad

At home Đán is a caring grandson, son, and brother. He loves his grandmother and he is closest to Đạo, his older brother. His interactions with his parents and younger siblings depend on his mood. Đán enjoys speedy, challenging sports including snowboarding and rollerblading. He’s a fast learner, especially with any activities he is interested in. For example, he likes building PCs; therefore, he excels at learning all the parts and putting them all together.

His challenges are lack of self-control and discipline. He doesn’t know when to turn off his brain. Asking him to get off his game or taking a break from his PC would spark an emotional breakdown. Some nights he couldn’t go to sleep because he could not stop thinking about what he was doing during the day. Once he is focused on something, he can’t turn his mind off. As a result, he can’t concentrate on schoolworks or other activities.

At school, he didn’t do too well in previous years. He struggled the most during the pandemic. He could not stay focused through online learning. He fell behind academically in math and language arts. He often zoomed out during class time. His father had to sit next to him to remind him to pay attention.

This academic year, however, he has made tremendous improvements. He listens to his teachers. He gets along well with his classmates. He enjoys school more this year. His teachers speak positively of his performance and behavior in classes. Although he seems to be doing better in a smaller environment, he is still struggling with staying focused on reading comprehension and staying on tasks.

One of his previous teachers recognized his weakness during the pandemic; therefore, whenever he was taking his tests, she would pull him out of the group and read the questions to him. Because she was reading the questions, he couldn’t rush through to just click on an answer without knowing the question. As a result, he was able to slow down and to think before selecting a random answer. Đán needs to be reminded to help him stay on track.

Đen Vâu:

Ở trong xóm anh rất ngoan, chẳng ai thấy anh say mèm
Mẹ anh dặn anh đủ thứ, nhưng quên dặn đừng say em

Binz:

Em ơi, em ơi đừng làm khổ anh
Anh chỉ muốn chân em ở trên cổ anh

after Romare Bearden’s Patchwork Quilt (1969)

My back is turned from him again,
but this time I’m not hunched
over the quilt—his rough thumbs
gripping my waist—I’m standing
in the middle of a room constructed
with pencil, adhesive, and paper.
One foot in the basin, I will scrub
his cigarette hands and yellow eyes
off my skin. I will clean my sex
and start again. Another will come
and I’ll forget the coat hung gently
on the hook—different than the way
he took me. He shook like a startled
fish caught in a great blue heron’s beak.
Yes, a woman of my kind
has seen the sea. The first time, I gasped
at its glistening mouth.
Endlessly the waves replaced themselves.
I launder my nakedness like a uniform
with water from the pitcher.
Soon another will arrive who I will
wash away. There is a man who dares
to face me, he considers
every angle. He built my form
with precise lines and foraged scraps
of brown. From the harsh shape
my elbow makes, the builder knows
this is a portrait of work,
not pleasure. I love how softly
he touches me, though all I want
is to be left, to spend a morning in bed
alone with the images of dream.

Ama Codjoe

This collection took me a bit to feel the vibes. Tibble’s poems are honest, heartfelt, and humorous. She is a young poet with so much potential. I’ll definitely go back for a second read.

To get the number of pages for the dynamic portions, I logged into MODX admin and started with the Faculty Working Papers. The record shows 1,404 pages. Since SiteImprove crawled 2,098 pages and the Faculty Working Papers alone take 70% of the total pages, I wanted to dig a bit further into the database. The MySQL table for content shows a total of 5,164 pages (these included everything from public to hidden to unpublished pages).

Here are the numbers for the current dynamic portions:

• Faculty Working Papers: 1404 pages
• Course Catalog: 373 pages
• Course Schedules: 72 pages (Backend programming is required to import the Excel file (CSV) into the database (MySQL) and populate an HTML table for the course schedules)
• Student Organizations: 70 pages
• JD Focus Areas & Concentrations: 18 pages
• Class Notes: 70 pages
• Clinic & Externships: 15 pages
• People Finder (Dynamically pulled from faculty, admin & staff directories in MODX as well as linking to bios and departments outside of MODX)

There’s a body marching toward mine.
I can feel its breasts and stomach, hot

against my back. Its breath in my hair.
I accumulate bodies—my own.

The tattoo braceleting my wrist.
My earlobe like a pin hole camera.

My vagina, untouched. My vagina,
stretched. So many bodies treading

toward the others. And the bruises I conceal
with makeup and denial. The scars I inflict

on myself, and the ones I contort
with a mirror to see. I didn’t always know

we’d be joined like this—that I couldn’t
leave any of myself behind.

In Trisha Brown’s Spanish Dance
a performer raises both arms like a bailora

and shifts her weight from hip to hip, knee
to knee, ankle to ankle, until she softly

collides with another dancer. The two travel
forward, pelvis to sacrum, stylized fingers

flared overhead, until they meet a third woman
and touch her back like stacked spoons.

Dressed in identical white pants and long
sleeves, the dancers repeat the steps

until, single file, five women shuffle
forward-they go no further.

The dance lasts the exact length of Bob Dylan’s
rendition of “Early Mornin’ Rain.”

How many versions of myself pile
into the others, arms lifted in surrender,

torsos twisting to the harmonica?
But the dancers—I’m moved by their strange

conga line. A train of women traversing
the stage, running gently into a wall.

Ama Codjoe