A Bracelet of Lies won the 1987 poetry contest from Washington Writers’ Publishing House, a nonprofit literary cooperative press founded in 1975 to present work by writers living in the Washington D.C. area. The book features themes of childhood, parenthood, and immigration.

UNDER THE SIGN OF THE PALM

Poised at my window
under the sign of the palm
under the eyes of a goddess
disguised as a virgin,
I take your hand and tell you
all the lies I know:

You will inherit a fortune.
You will have seven children
all boys. Someone you loved
will return. You will make
a long journey soon over water.

I do not tell you that all journeys
are over water, that the white-eyed
horse of fear will always haunt you
and the child’s obsessive dying.
I see illness, the house in flames,
the shadowed wall, the swift cascade
of seasons, the web of your life
growing aimless and vague at the edges.
I see you falling

out of the palm that holds you safe
into the curving dark, I see
the long swoon backward into space
and the slow swim up through darkness 
over the lip of the world
into light.

Your body is waiting, and you climb into it.
You pull on the blue chemise and the cotton skirt
figured with animals walking.
Dolphins lift their perfect torsos 
out of the water, calling after you.           
Elephants circle your thighs.
You fasten the raspberry glass to your ears
and move inland

toward this meeting under the sign
of the palm, this room
where I wait with my bracelet of lies.