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THERESA

I’m worried she’ll be a fish out of water.

ROBERTA

When do we meet her? When’re they movin’?

THERESA

Not now. Soon. We’ll see. They’re waiting to see if Mingjing can transfer jobs.

            ROBERTA puts down her cookie.

ROBERTA

What’s her name?

THERESA

Minjung.

ROBERTA

Theresa.

            THERESA sips tea.

THERESA

She’s in architecture, works for a big firm out there

ROBERTA

(indicating the under-eye skin) Those dark circles, no wonder.

THERESA

But she might give it up and teach.

ROBERTA

You seen her only once?

THERESA

Tim never said any—why would I think

ROBERTA

Such a rush.

THERESA

My brain’s exploded.

ROBERTA

I knew it: how far gone is she?

Note: A male actor plays the roles of both THERESA and her son TIM. A second male actor plays the roles of both ROBERTA and her son ROBBIE.

I’m good enough to get the once-over in the bar at The Restaurant, I see them thinking my

smallness is appealing, my ass and face are cute enough, I see them thinking that short haircut

might be sexy. I’m always in a backless cocktail dress and heels, I’m flat chested and a tad

muscular so they ask me if I’m a dancer and say Call me sometime, let’s have a drink. It took

me a while to understand you’re supposed to work that for your money but you can let the

willingness fall right off your face when you turn around. It took me a while to understand that of

course men fling their entreaties out in swarms, like schools of sperm, hoping one will stick.

The man asks, Do you have a family? My thinking

brushes the air between us like a wet mark

stains white paper. My mother’s mother, dead

twenty-two years. A stone house. The ants I’ve killed.

Robyne, who, when someone hurls 

toward me a small cruelty, cries. Memphis in August.

My twin brother crunching ice. All the cousins

I’ve made. Walking amongst cedar trees.

The deaf hear only in their dreams. I am sure

I can hear nothing. My how the mountain leaps

towards the sea and the little village below.

Who sang for the white plate my father tossed

at my sister’s shadow? What funeral is held

for a broken compass? When cutting onions,

leave a candle lit somewhere near an old man

holding his wife in a napkin. In the torn light of evening,

there is enough treason for everybody. Excuse me,

I should say something about the beauty of cranes.

Once in a sycamore I tossed a brick at a boy’s head.

It opened like the sea. I think I saw a crane.

“This was when my dad was still living with us, but he would come to services from work, so when we went home afterward I’d have to choose who to go home with.  I don’t know if it upset my dad, but I always went home with my mom.  Mostly because she drove the Beetle, which was so much more fun. She would play these old Patti Smith cassettes, and I’d sing with her. But the best part was she’d let me put on the dome light, so it felt like we were in this little space capsule, just the two of us. That’s my favorite memory, me and my mom going home from temple Friday nights.  That car was like a lit-up igloo rolling through the dark.”