Genealogy Outside, it's cold like the day  my father's grandpa drowned  while Sigrid salted cod on walls  of stacked antlers. Their sons  and daughter fled to Eden  Prairie. One, my father's uncle, lost  a claim in Manitoba, another crashed  a Huppmobile. One died ice-fishing.  My father's mother, pink and vicious, made  him cover the bidet with plywood  when we lived in Teheran. Made me drive  all over Fairfax County in search  of Carnival glass. Told me "Never  marry a woman for her looks." My mother's  dad lost his lungs to mustard gas. Her mom  never gambled. Betty lived in Hollywood  working at the studios, roller-skating  with a man who would later play  Tonto. She rented a room  in a house with a victory garden until  the Tamuras were shipped  to Utah, then married Dad, who left  to kill Koreans. On the ship  to Japan to join him in Kobe, my sister  scared me with stories of dwarves. My children's  mom is small and pale, like the pages  of an appointment book, except when speaking  Spanish. Then, her hands become larakeets, her eyes  marcasite. Her grandfather knew the Franks  before they moved to Holland, and he  to Pasadena, where he never met  my mother who skis like she's waltzing,  or my father, who came home and built  a barbeque of brick, or my sister the shrink,  or my brother who sells drugs, or my other sister  for that matter. They all live  in California and no one  ever dies. There's a boy  at the bus stop who dances  in place: knit cap, heavy coat, an extra  chromosome, perhaps. Sometimes he raises  his arms and spins. The world starts with him.