A Theory of Hearts and Lemons - a poem by Kyi May Kaung

A Theory of Hearts and Lemons by Kyi May Kaung

They say
like lemons
you'll be sucked dry
some will come back further
to dice and mince your skin
removed your zest

to flavor cakes and pies.

Some will make you into jam
and preserves.

A week after they broke up
the maid says
she came back
to take some things
she must have still had
the key

she eyed the two ripe lemons on the tree
she took the nice stainless steel pans Mr Joe gave Mr Tint - she plucked the two ripe lemons
I thought she was going to
put the lemons in the house
instead she took them to her car.

I said:  She's lost the man already
maybe she's trying to take
as many of the material things
as she can.  She's lost him already.

Shortly after we moved whole family
to San Francisco.

Fifteen years ago the sister the model and the standard of beauty
came to my house where I was already gone
Boat Boat told my other relative who told me
the sister who never liked me looked at my mother's prize
Tan Chay Yan dendrobiums blooming in front of the house
which in the past even I was not allowed or did not dare to pick
and zwee, plucked a blossom, and put in in her hair I hear

In the past Mother picked her orchids
only when invited to visit
the first family
or
it was harvested -- for Daw Kitty's funeral by someone else.

Even the orchids.

That's why I hate power.

In America bad cars with messed up insides
are called "lemons"  there's even a Lemon Law for if
you become a victim

there's Megan's Law to report
on sexual predators living in your
neighborhood  still things happen.

I could not read far into The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
it was so painful.

But in the end the soil not the women
married to or somehow related to
power   will win

the beautiful woman with the sad face

carrying a chip on her shoulder as she's not the daughter of another kind of first family
she was the daughter of
a concubine--concubines plentiful in the Moulmein taipan families

I saw her half-brother from the first family
quite a different face a handsome confident face
a face ready
to take on the world.

She resented the patriarch father in law

who trimmed his toe nails with an enormous file used for
trimming wood

I said be careful
I've read diabetics need to be careful any wound
may result in a lost leg

I kept my distance

She resented the old man
on cemetery festival days she brought
two or three under-ripe guavas from her garden
as hard as stone

her sons and all the teenagers
ate all the pao tse I brought

I never met a woman so rich and so scared
of being poor and they have the gall that side of the family

to tell me I only talk of money.

You talk of what you don't have.

So let's squeeze a little more lemon juice
into all those old wounds
and pep them up again with some good ole pain.

Only Mongoose swinging from a tree jumping up and down
with blue plumbago blossoms stuck by their hairy
calyxes to both eyebrows

sings off key just like his father  singing Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy--

sings equally off key

"Lemon tree very pretty
and the lemon flower is sweet
but the fruit of the poor lemon
is impossible to eat."  (Harry Belafonte)

And here is the wife of the man with the long face
thone lone ta taung
pronouncing lemon limon in Hispanic

and here are even   lemon tarts and
lemon curd  a taste for them picked up
in Deltham, London.

The curd made with egg yolks and lots of sugar
no doubt tasty
but now I am reduced to
talking about them.

"I can't even" the writer  dying of cancer says
"even have my last meal."

In the end all we have is the same life
even if it's a lemon sometimes
but not always.  All we can do is taste the lemon
taste the tart lemon.

I never saw a child like that who loves lemons--
as soon as we arrive
at the Westernized Chinese restaurant  I go
to the bucket of lemon pieces
near the soda fountains

Khaliffe smiles when he see me bringing them.
Ah ha!  Mommy is busy strapping Coretta into her chair  Dadda is paying for the food.
Grandma is feeding me forbidden foods on the sly
again.

At dinner, his mother nearly screams What did you have??  Why aren't you eating??  What did you give him??

I say honestly, I did not give him anything.

(I just left -- a half full can of cashews on the table at his eye level while I was reading -- of course
he polished it off, just like the Peak Frean biscuits just like --)

My dentist's sister dispenses advice and desk receptionist's wisdom:
Whatever happens between your grandchild and yourself -- keep it a Secret.
Maybe the next day they will discover what he ate-- but then it's too late you are on the plane or train--
look at this (she shoves a photo at me which I hardly look at)  He's too small for his age?  K said as soon as she saw him, But why is he so small??

And here is this big butt  small head woman
swaying her buttocks as she advances to
give me the crocodile writer a lesson
in swimming writing.

She goes to the cafeteria in that radio station from truly hell looking out on the swimming pool of the residential building next door  men and women sunning themselves in warm weather
in scanty clothing

she pulls  a handful of puffed up very yellow corn chips
out of a plastic bag

she says, I don't eat regular meals any more.
Is that a good thing? - This is the same transgendered "woman" who stole or tried to steal my two great scoops

once when the refugee camp Hwaykhaloke was still burning - and Ellen Karen whom I'd met at a conference they didn't want me to go to, and tried to sabotage --called me to say, It's burning.  They think it's the DKBA that has attacked--

Big butt laying the puffs or chips on the formica table
in a pyramid shape:
This is how you write--

then she sweeps up the puffs or chips contemptuously as if they personify my writing
puts them in her hippo mouth and starts munching.

I find this so hilarious I travel the world telling this story.

I told this to Y. Snaing as we walked to the Museum
along Doi Suthep Road and Ninmarhayman spelled several different ways there is no standard transliteration.

So copy editor dear what you saw or say you saw is as good a guess as mine

and anyway, the person who writes the history
always, I mean ALWAYS
has
the last word.

Fin.




Copyright Kyi May Kaung www.kmkaung.com