I had planned, we always did, to dig up bamboo shoots, then parboil them for the girls. But when the bamboo took over the property—even threatening to invade the neighboring yard, even threatening, I think, the foundation of the house—I hired guys to come over and rip it out by the roots. Then they returned and stole a samurai dagger and an antique silk jacket.

Father’s Second Wife to the Daughters

You know, all these ten years—or is it nine—anyway, all these years I have never been in that man’s home. He would stay with me most of the week, then return to his house to water the bamboo, etc. etc. At one point I told him that if he didn’t invite me inside, we could just break up. Well that deadline came and went.

The Daughter again

She just didn’t get it: how a fastidious dresser, a man who picked lint off the Oriental, might have a home in absolute ruin. She tried mightily to contain the projects that he produced in her apartment and she did pretty well. Even so, when she died I had to haul out everything from sketchbooks to scraps of bamboo. Lots of pieces.

The Second Daughter to Sister

I don’t know when his forgetfulness became a thief—ha! I mean belief—that there were guys breaking in.

The Deceased Wife to her Husband

You weeded and watered the garden of moss. The moss we’d found and replanted and never thrived, not really. But the bit of bamboo you planted certainly did. So much so that, when you stopped driving and stopped going up to the house, those several plants took over the whole half-acre lot. Along with stinging nettles.

The Second Daughter again

I’ve searched online for the tiny burrs that fasten to our pants when at the house. Even back at home, taking darks out of the dryer, I find the sharp things still fastened, even transferred to other clothing. And I am still not sure what the little devils are called.

The Second Granddaughter

Rei should add: The bamboo cricket cage. And the paintings of the bamboo cricket cage.

The Appraiser again to the Daughters

Let me know what you decide.

•••

Notes

Epigraph

The lines are an excerpt from Charles Wright’s poem, “College Days.”

“Object Lessons”

I have used quotations and information about Dr. Chevalier Quixote Jackson gleaned from a number of sources, most notably from Mary Cappello’s remarkable book Swallow: Foreign Bodies, Their Ingestion, Inspiration, and the Curious Doctor Who Extracted Them (New York: The New Press, 2011). Most of the italicized sections are from her book; a few italicized words are for emphasis.

“Hatchlings”

This poem was cut from Toxic Flora (2009), then revived last year. I believe the original source was “Calls from Crocodile Eggs Serve as Alerts” by Henry Fountain, The New York Times, June 24, 2008.

“The Cryptic Chamber”