Cluster

by Souvankham Thammavongsa

  My brother mid-scream, ready as ever to be part of the show and have his

  close-up.

  My father made signs and my mother worked with him.

  In St. Petersburg, Florida, was my uncle. He was my father’s older

  brother, the first-born.

  My uncle took us fishing in Key West.

  We dragged a net and caught shrimp, a baby shark, and a blowfish the size

  of a human eyeball. The blowfish we kept.

  Because it was scared, it blew itself up, a hard round ball.

  My mother loved this creature and tried to preserve it as it was dying.

  She tied string around the tail, made a knot, and hung it in the backyard.

  But the humidity in Florida kept it moist.

  It rotted.

  It started to smell, and the shape it was started to flatten and then dry out.

  We drove home, back to Toronto with this blowfish rotting in the car.

  The smell got to be so bad my mother put a few drops of Chanel No. 5

  perfume on it every four hours.

  By the time we got home, the blowfish had shrunk to the size of a raisin.

  It was only we who knew that stinking raisin had once been a blowfish.

  A blowfish.

  Once round, a prickly thing, full of air.

  To this day, I can’t stand Chanel No. 5.

  It reminds me of that blowfish.

  Rot. Raw.

  How the thing lost its shape in the world and became a small hardness.

  It’s strange, isn’t it?

  How this rot reminds me of a time when my family was happy.

  How thrilled and alive we all were together, inside King Kong’s palm, his

  open mouth.

  We lost the shape of who we were.

  And there’s nothing left but that shape in the car.

  The one no one else could say was alive, but us.

  CHRISTMAS

  We are five levels below the ground

  I didn’t know basements go this far down

  What everyone

  Is doing here is counting cash

  Bags and bags and bags

  Brought in by a security truck

  We count this cash

  Make sure it all adds up

  Enter the correct amount

  Right down to the penny

  The cash passing through

  Is not mine

  I have never seen

  This kind of money before

  Where it comes from

  Is labelled

  It’s all from grocery stores

  Food in every brightly lit aisle

  At four in the morning

  We stop, form a circle, and exercise

  Someone turns on music

  And we move along

  I didn’t bring anything to eat

  Didn’t have time to make lunch

  And a woman there knows this

  She is or has been a mother before

  She tells me I should eat this

  This thing she made at home

  It’s warm

  She can’t possibly finish it

  All by herself, she tells me

  And I have some

  I haven’t told her anything

  Not even my name

  Where I’ve been or why

  I’m here

  I didn’t say

  What happened

  What I lost

  Or what’s wrong

  That’s something people do

  Up there

  TWINS

  I remember the evening we saw

  this movie. I was eleven. My parents

  just bought a van. They wanted to go

  to the drive-in and we waited for it to

  get dark outside. We brought along

  pillows and a blanket, hot chocolate. I fell

  asleep in the backseat, tired of waiting. I might

  have woken up a few times because I do

  remember this scene of them dancing

  in a bar. I remember my parents laughing

  at how these two could be twins. One giant

  and the other out of shape and short. That

  these two could come from the same place

  at the same time and could manage all

  these years apart. When I think about it,

  the two of them were like that too even if

  they didn’t think of it like that then. I

  now wish I hadn’t fallen asleep that day.

  I wish I had stayed awake, remembered all

  the times they laughed so hard like this together.

  There were so many of them. We always

  had an abacus around. Maybe if I learned

  how to use one, I could have shifted a few beads

  and then tell you how much a lifetime costs.

  THEORY OF WRITING

  We all know two plus two equals four

  And we begin with that. We learn to add

  Before we learn how to take away, to lose.

  It’s a great way to learn how to write. To

  Have a formula, a line to follow. Before

  We know what adding means, we have to

  Know what two means. What two and two

  Means together. There are many ways to get to

  Four. Five subtract one is equal to four.

  One times four is equal to four. The square

  Root of sixteen is four. A square root

  Is a number that looks exactly like it, multiplied

  By itself. Four divided by one also equals

  Four. Four to the power of one is equal to four, too.

  We can get there through a derivative, if

  That’s how you want it. The square of the

  Hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares

  Of the other two sides can also get you to four.

  There are so many ways to get to four.

  Once all these other ways of getting

  To four are understood, it’s not really four

  You’re after. Anyone can get to four. And

  You know this. Maybe it’s the certainty of

  Four. That you can always get to it. That it will

  Always turn out the same. Maybe that’s what

  You want. The certainty of four. Or maybe

  It’s the ways in which you know how

  To get to four that is the point of writing. What

  You had to learn and build, the time it took

  To hold open that possibility for yourself.

  ANOTHER PICTURE OF US

  Maybe it was me who had taken this picture. My parents

  are looking at the camera, unsmiling, serious, my father’s

  arm over my mother’s shoulder. I know this picture is taken

  at their friend’s house. Behind them are photographs of other

  people. It’s cold. They are wearing sweaters. My mother’s

  shoes match her red leather belt and lips. They are kitten heels.

  The photo isn’t very clear. Dark. Maybe the flash had been

  turned off. This photo had been tucked in behind another one.

  It was one still intact of the two of them. I am trying to take

  what I know now and try to see if I can find it here. Had it

  happened here on this day or did it come apart years after.

  They are the same height, all dressed up, somewhere to go.

  A party, a wedding. Maybe there will be some dancing.

  I hope where they are going, they will have fun and remember

  all of it. I hope they remember how they were together and who

  they were with. I hope they remember their love, the comfort of it,

  the way it feels to know you have it. I can’t see them together

  like this anymore. But here we are, together, for once.

  A SNAKE

  thinks

  itself

  so free

>   shedding

  its skin

  leaving

  everything

  it was

  behind,

  but when it dies

  all that’s left

  are the bones

  it was locked up in

  They form

  and bar

  all the facts

  inside

  MANGOSTEENS

  My mother taught me to pick

  one. They look all the same

  from the outside. You can’t

  tell by knocking, shaking, or

  looking at the skin which

  is ripe. The ones my mother

  picked out, the fruit was full

  and bounteous, sweet, barely

  any seed. The ones I chose

  opened to seeds, bitter and

  furious things. She told me

  to turn one upside down

  and count the bumps. I picked

  them like she did, brought them

  to a fence I climbed over, and

  gave them to you. You did

  not want these things. Said

  you couldn’t eat anything

  like that. I didn’t understand.

  It didn’t make sense. But then,

  I saw you change. Sometimes

  it happened over a few days,

  other times in an afternoon,

  or just under an hour. It always

  started with your teeth. They

  chattered and chopped, then you

  bit your lip and ate your mouth

  and head, and you turned

  to get the rest of you. Each time,

  I built you back from memory,

  put things in the wrong place,

  further and further from what

  you were. Each time, you got angry,

  ranted and raved, told me this is not

  the way you looked. I wasn’t sure

  anymore, and you’d start up again.

  Each time you vanished, bloody

  and painful this way. Yesterday,

  you said you didn’t want to keep

  doing this. I wondered about the soul,

  if that was something you ate up too,

  something I didn’t build for you.

  MISTER SNUFFLEUPAGUS

  You wouldn’t know it but I’m Mister Snuffleupagus

  Big Bird’s best friend on a street called Sesame

  It took a lot of work to be Mister Snuffleupagus

  No one really knows that

  I did it for two and a half years

  Big Bird told me “Most people don’t last that long”

  I didn’t want to be Mister Snuffleupagus

  I did it for Big Bird

  I thought he could really use a real friend

  I went to the audition and I got the part

  Each week there was a new audition and I always made the cut

  I don’t really know why

  Maybe they were impressed I did it all by myself

  It usually took a team of two or three to be him

  I blinked his eyes and fluttered his eyelashes

  I moved all four legs, that tail and trunk

  I smiled on cue

  I sang and swayed and propped him up

  All the lines I had to memorize

  All the staying-out-of-the-way I did

  There were others who had been Mister Snuffleupagus

  But no one played that part as good as me

  Maybe you noticed something different about him

  When I was Mister Snuffleupagus

  I noticed something different about Big Bird

  He was happy

  The view I had from inside the suit

  I watched all the friends who came

  And never saw me

  I watched all the games you played

  I never got to play them with anyone but Big Bird

  He had me all to himself

  I loved Big Bird

  I guess that’s the reason I came back each week to audition

  Big Bird and I knew each other without our costumes

  We had seen the other’s face

  He let me see his face

  He said something about love and he took off his head

  I took my head off too, but it was because I knew what I was

  Big Bird told me I could be replaced

  Anyone could be Mister Snuffleupagus, he said

  I argued back

  It’s not true, I said

  Only I could be Mister Snuffleupagus

  The same way only he could be Big Bird

  That year he turned forty-two

  The year he knew the answer to life, the universe, and everything

  But he didn’t know the question

  I was there

  I was there when the room filled with the friends he wanted

  I was good at having feelings and having fun

  But that isn’t proof of anything

  Feelings

  I was the expert at the small joys

  The one who asked all the questions

  After a while, I got tired of not being seen

  I knew what I was

  I stopped auditioning

  My scenes were there in full colour

  My suit was worn and held up by others

  It happens to everyone, I guess

  Not long after I had been gone

  Everyone else moved out of the neighbourhood

  Even the grouchy guy in the garbage can

  Friends stopped coming over for dinner

  Big Bird doesn’t know why that is

  I do

  When I was there

  I knew what I was

  I was Mister Snuffleupagus

  That’s why

  Big Bird moved out of the neighbourhood too

  There were other Mister Snuffleupaguses I am sure

  The show, after all, has to go on

  But none were like me

  Big Bird would never say that

  Not to me

  It would mean there was something behind all the play

  Something real

  Just because you have nothing to show for it

  It doesn’t mean it wasn’t real

  All the children are still there

  Grown up now, of course

  They don’t know what I made and did for them

  And those who have taken my scenes don’t know what I broke

  They don’t know I spit those words in that mouth first

  I want to say what I never got to say

  That I was there

  That it was me

  That it was mine

  It all belonged to me

  I was there when it all happened

  At the beginning

  You won’t find that in his stories or his books

  Not even a footnote or appendix

  There isn’t a record of it

  Happiness embarrasses Big Bird

  He can’t believe in it

  To keep his revolution going

  He won’t ever say it

  So I will say it for myself

  Because I live in this world too

  Notes

  1. “Sunrise with Sea Monsters” – see J. M. W. Turner’s painting

  2. “O” – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/03/laos-cluster-bombs-uxo-deaths and the July 2018 New York Times coverage of the dam collapse in Laos.