{"id":3438,"date":"2011-11-16T07:33:29","date_gmt":"2011-11-16T07:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sporkpress.com\/poetry\/?p=223"},"modified":"2011-11-16T07:33:29","modified_gmt":"2011-11-16T07:33:29","slug":"3-poems-by-kate-fujimoto-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/2011\/11\/16\/3-poems-by-kate-fujimoto-2\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Poems by Kate Fujimoto"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mt. St. Helens<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My brother stole a car and drove me to Mt. St. Helens<\/p>\n

where geologists cough up ash and cinder and their own blood<\/p>\n

trying to prove that all mountains<\/p>\n

have roots.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll believe them, I tell my brother that St. Helens<\/p>\n

wears her guts on the outside \u2013 like he does<\/p>\n

grey and green and angry, his grin<\/p>\n

an empty stomach, his voice a portrait<\/p>\n

of young criminal courage.<\/p>\n

My brother<\/p>\n

the highwayman \u2013 disowned, permanently<\/p>\n

estranged. Our parents say he\u2019s always been rotten<\/p>\n

at the core, but could they prove it? They taught me not<\/p>\n

to trust anything ill-supported, and anyway, I ride<\/p>\n

shotgun in his hotwired cars, smoke his cigarettes<\/p>\n

secondhand, I cough up all sorts of<\/p>\n

electromagnetic, radioactive, pyroclastic plumes<\/p>\n

hot air and molten rock<\/p>\n

and when we stop to look up at the mountain \u2013<\/p>\n

open-mouthed \u2013<\/p>\n

I know better than to say anything.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

______________<\/p>\n

Birds<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The house I left in August<\/p>\n

is nothing<\/p>\n

but a death-trap for birds.<\/p>\n

They break their necks against<\/p>\n

the windows my mother feverishly polishes in November.<\/p>\n

They die quietly in the backyard.<\/p>\n

I once found three tiny, screaming chicks<\/p>\n

in the gutter under the mailbox.<\/p>\n

I was twelve which meant<\/p>\n

elbows like table-corners<\/p>\n

legs that bent like jewelry-wire \u2013<\/p>\n

my mother\u2019s bones<\/p>\n

hollow like a bird\u2019s.<\/p>\n

They died in the garage,<\/p>\n

nestled in Wednesday\u2019s newsprint,<\/p>\n

under a warm light<\/p>\n

and my sister\u2019s steadfast scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Their bright, black, glass-bead eyes<\/p>\n

were half-open<\/p>\n

when I brushed away the ants<\/p>\n

that were trying to eat their feet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

______________<\/p>\n

To The Sea, The Sea of Mud<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After they drained<\/p>\n

the reservoir under the highway,<\/p>\n

we found a sea of mud.<\/p>\n

He called it a giant\u2019s thumbprint.<\/p>\n

God, aren\u2019t we<\/p>\n

small?<\/p>\n

Still wearing<\/p>\n

clean clothes from work,<\/p>\n

I pointed to a place in the center<\/p>\n

where water still sadly pooled.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I want to go there, I said.<\/p>\n

___________________________<\/p>\n

Kate Fujimoto grew up in Hawaii and studies English in Washington. She is sometimes hungry. She makes music\u00a0here (kateofkate.bandcamp.com<\/a>). People say she dresses like a grandmother. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mt. St. Helens   My brother stole a car and drove me to Mt. St. Helens where geologists cough up ash and cinder and their own blood trying to prove that all mountains have roots. I\u2019ll believe them, I tell my brother that St. Helens wears her guts on the outside \u2013 like he does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}