Operation Pluto

Nothing but mesa. Nothing between our house

and the massive upjuts

of granite: two fronts blaring dimensionless

blue-white. Until evening's wash of reds

altered them. Made of them a retablo

carved from the flesh of fruit, sur

real apple, watermelon:

Manzano, Sandia. Seeded,

carefully tamped here, bombs

stamp the canyon named for scissors:

X.

And there are delicate

incubations in Cuba: a hatch of Pluto's

own beaks pin

Sprawled before the occasion

for-sin brought into the house by our cousin,

her own portable Zenith. We're watching

We're tin black and white a woman

turban her red before with sprigs of grapes, small wax

bananas. She's bor-sin brought into the house by our cousin,

in ther own portable Zenith. We're enlists, to crashing

in black and white Coma, Ethel: more fuel

turban her red head with sprigs of grapes, small wax

bananas. She's bored, antsy: she wants

in the act. She enlists, to crash

the Copa, Ethel: more fuel

for farce, havoc

for her husband, the drummer, the Latin

bandleader. My father

comes in from the study, goes

out, comes back in, looks at us, looks

out the window. He picks up my

brother, sits down, put his

arms along the back of the couch

above our heads.

I should be helping my mother.

I expect my father to say this.

When he takes off his glasses, the skin

around his eyes puckers, sucks at the screen

like a bad bite. Two jobs, ten children; an ID

clipped to his shirt takes him past

guards in a booth, to the base, to AEC

where he enters and enters

the cost of things. At night he's a college

professor. My mother's

the mother. She comes from the kitchen.

When the screendoor's compressed-spring

put out my oldest brother's

eye, her face

looked like it does now. She says

AREN'T YOU GOING TO TALK TO THEM! She means

us. I feel dread

plant itself under my ribs, and guilt;

is it the TV? He looks

up at her, says, as if at a loss, as if, yes,

he's also considered this, what

good would that do? Her body goes hard, grows

fierce. The way it does before the heart

lessness of shirked work, chores

half-done. The way it says to us who love

mayhem, plummet, slapstick's

crash, melee's

slapdash-with-no-thought-of-aftermath, says

almost smoldering,

NEVERMIND, I'LL DO IT!

The way she took on the toppled

poplar in the backyard. Like an ant. Snapping the life

less limbs into smaller and

smaller pieces, feeding them to the compost,

stuffing them into saved

Safeway bags, setting them out on the sidewalk

ten at a time, every Monday

for months. The way her body

storms out now, goes into the prayer

room, slams the door.

Note: "Operation Pluto" was CIA code for the Bay of Pigs invasion, April 17, 1961. Eighteen months later, from the time Kennedy informed the nation of missiles mounting in Cuba until Krushchev agreed to back down, those who knew, and those who didn't, lived under immediate threat of nuclear war.

Copyright Frontiers Publishing, Inc. 1997
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