I was fascinated by my parents’ grown up rituals — shaving, make-up, getting ready for their adult world. I reached for the mystery of it, so present in my daily life, yet so far away from my own childhood routine. Religion was the same in my family’s experience. I observed my father’s prayer practice, hands cupped around his Buddha charms, moving with his breath as he kneeled. When he wasn’t looking, I fingered his display of small Buddha statues and ragged postcards next to his bed. My parents observed my world, too, taking me to Catholic mass on Sundays. Somehow, our different experiences came together, shared but not shared, connected by our interest in each other.
In the mornings,
I watched my father shave.
Perched on the edge
of the toilet seat,
I studied the glide of metal
over skin,
cutting rows through
white cream.
And my mother,
with her dots of lotion
and colored powders.
Opening eyes wide –
like an upright doll –
for the wand of inky mascara.
Lips stretched,
smacked,
dabbed.
I reached into their adult world
in the same way I reached for prayer:
watching the blur
of my father’s praying hands,
the quick slip of Buddha charms
inside his undershirt,
where they beat
alongside his heart.
They watched, too.
Perched on the edge of pews,
they watched over the
prayers of my world,
committed to observation,
and something more:
to reaching toward my life
a little, to stepping
just barely inside –
not into knowledge or
understanding,
but simply into view.
Amphibious 