"Fuchi."
Fuchi, when we passed the stockyard or city incinerator
"Who threw a fart?"
Nana would ask
As if the offense were a grenade or a football.
I didn't know the origins of her phrase,
Its hand off, until I learned tirar in Spanish class.
I've read of toxins in electronics plants--
Chemicals that poison, cause cancers,
Numb the senses of smell and taste
With odors in so-called clean rooms.
Did the smells elicit a fuchi?
Fool, please, I hear in the word.
I hear Chinese, too.
Think of those moves in qigong--
Part the horse's mane,
Strum the lute,
Grasp the sparrow's tail.
Could they ward off cancer, release toxins,
Repair one's chi after one's shift?
I remember watching Chi Chi Rodríguez
Parry his putter
With a flourish after sinking a putt
Then sheath the club at his waist in a make
believe scabbard.
In grad school, I learned of Kristeva's abject,
Those liminal spaces between what we reject
and what we obsess.
Growing up Chino, the question I was most often asked
Besides, "What are you?"
Was, "Do you know kung fu?"
Kung, I looked up, means skillful work,
Hard training, or endeavor.
Fu means time spent.
I asked my Nana about her time in the factory.
"I worked the scopes," she says,
"Looking for marks.
If the wafer was scratched, I threw it out."
What is it we keep?
What is obsolete?
"That's when I think my eyes started to go bad."
What kind of seeing is hardwired in our circuitry?
"They were like tiny little maps,"
She tells me, "of the city."