Joshua Bridgwater Hamilton lives and teaches in Corpus Christi, TX. He has two chapbooks: Rain Minnows (Gnashing Teeth Publishing), and Slow Wind (Finishing Line Press), and his poetry appears in such journals as Windward Review, Driftwood, Voices de la Luna, Tiny Seeds Journal, and Sybil Journal.
Photography by P. M. Chatelain
Transmission
Sunday morning
the coffeeshop cook
preps brunch –
beams of light
diaphanous through east
facing windows.
Smell of worn wood
rises clean
from floor…
Cable installers
by their trucks
Full of fiber optic
and signal boxes
Smoke cigarettes,
laughter rising
in the alley…
Quiet before
Saturday night hangovers
come crashing:
vindications of fellowship,
hall pews,
then thumping Harley riders
cruise the scenic
highway that splits
our town…
From roasting coffee
pots of gravy
biscuits
rising
these placeholders
of stillness
sheer will
occupy
everywhere
the day.
Balut
Oversaturated Manila afternoon pushes electric tides
past pools of teeming sea life. My father-in-law’s
self-assured advance as he passes through a held door –
quick nod, eye squeeze, faint whimsy in his smile,
his body a stooped comma stepping forward:
into car shrimp stand hotel family land –
nothing stops him from Molugan to Chicago.
While in Manila, I collect
Kopico instant coffee packets.
Breakfast with Benito and Barbara
in a windowless section of the hotel.
Later my daughter slips into the pool,
slotted, glistening, between two high-rises.
In Cebu City, after my spouse
presents at the university,
the rain fills streets and light
so thick it connects – like a fluid air –
people in jeepneys,
walking on sidewalks, us –
we pass boys showering
under broken gutters,
glistening with pale light,
an aqueous gossamer.
When my father
met my father-in-law, he asked about
Manila naval stations, 1968, was it
burnished like he remembered? Ben agreed, though
when he was a boy
he had to hide in the hills.
In Cagayán de Oro
our family present an egg to me
at their restaurant
after Luis has set
(and I have emptied)
five different San Miguels
in front of me.
As instructed, I crack the tip,
sip salty soup,
then put the shell to my mouth –
tightly folded embryo
sucked down throat,
premature feathers
growing into esophagus
until my insides
become winged
and take
flight.
Empty Mirrors
On still-dark roads
drivers watch for deer
opossum racoon – fear
the hapless animal
thick in shrub
wooded shadow
before it disasters
the road – a smash
against our hurtling
Flowers open
on slow blade of summer
Air swells with quarrel,
motor, school band discord,
pagan murmurs
of a water-glazed fountain
Vacant brick
and window
frame hope –
pigeon speared
on control spikes
fields of maize cracked open
spill and spill
onto county
highway
Maple, elm, oak
spread lucid chorus
alongside river;
near cottonwood
bursts open, summer
snowflakes reflecting on sun
Chromatic metal sleds
at the car show
polished bright and focusing
owners’ labors
into nuclei of pain-
staking diligence
Corvette Stingray
shines empty mirrors
we fill with sagging
skin billowing
shirts and awe
The ’66 Nova opens
box of Mulsanne blue
releases metallic-
flaked ash
like a volcano
of dead drivers
speeding into
chrome crash
Sumac
Define sumac:
tree, spice, poison,
canopy of unknown
ingredients spilt
under botanic reaches,
brew simmered until gulped
down medicated throat
peristaltic at the bass fever
passing from club
to inner vestibule –
dirty folded note
tucked behind the ear
of my seventh grade desires – Will,
touch me, Crystal, tongue
me, shock the seeping lagoon
between right eye and right
justification until
lacuna deepens sparkle
blue like Husky pencil,
holds by roots unfolding –
this trace of venom,
sprinkle of seasoning
with dose of excreta, hair
lining tile & Formica edges –
I brace hands
on both sides of the rail:
skinny hips marking
her marking me –
we shade kiss we highlight
shadows and cheekbones,
bed he & I slept in, best friends
elided in time passing –
no fine line no question,
just absent taxonomy
or a blind 1985 –
how did we
define it?
Sumac: blank space
before definition.
From the Editor:
We hope that readers receive In Parentheses as a medium through which the evolution of human thought can be appreciated, nurtured and precipitated. It will present a dynamo of artistic expression, journalism, informal analysis of our daily world, entertainment of ideas considered lofty and criticism of today’s popular culture. The featured content does not follow any specific ideology except for that of intellectual expansion of the masses.
Founded in late 2011, In Parentheses prides itself upon analysis of the current condition of intelligence in the minds of these young people, and building a hypothesis for one looming question: what comes after Post-Modernism?
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By In Parentheses in IP Volume 7
32 pages, published 1/15/2022
in parentheses 