disappoint meant

afraid you'd disappoint me--is that a compliment or a lack of faith?
i should have told you how impossible!
how just fingertips blushed down your cheek would close chasms for me
but i couldn't find words up on this dizzy pedestal/turned/gallows
where beautiful possibilities swing so unnecessarily



mary oishi
27 july 2009

for demetria martinez, for sandra cisneros

you beautiful chicanas with your surprising similes
like un nicho a la virgen de guadalupe
bursting flowers and festive color
at once sacred and profane, a loudly sung prayer
yet we coexist on the same page in the same poem
me, a concise slice of sushi, shouting nothing
neatly wrapped in metaphor
waiting for an acquired taste


mary oishi
29 july 2009