Analysis of "Afternoon Infusion" by Aaron Caycedo-Kimura

 Poem found here: "Afternoon Infusion" by Aaron Caycedo-Kimura

Questions I have when reading this poem the first time:

1. I wonder why endstopped stanzas in this narrative poem.  Does each stanza represent a scene?  Nothing really blends in together.
2. What is Ubasute?  Does the poem explain the concept enough or is it something that I should look up more?
3. How do people use place in poems?  How does the mention of Santa Rosa here add to the poem or maybe collection?

Each stanza should be taken as an individual scene of a story taking part in different locations: physically and mentally.  For example the first stanza:

She panics three hellos

as if startled by the noise

of an empty house,

calls from St. Joseph's:

the nurses are slow

to start her hydration.

With the opening stanza we are in medias res -- in the middle of a scene.  How this observer is omniscient and knows the psychological aspect of her of someone who panics and the physical aspect of her not only being in the hospital, but also if the nurses are not on pace for care.  Who is this speaker?

I'm at a bar--Stevie Nicks
reverbs in my beer,
lures me back to the edge
of seventeen in this town
I left thirty years ago.

Looking back in this stanza there's a sense of exposition.  The speaker left this town thirty years ago but is back.  I think I can safely assume that where the mom is and where the speaker is are in close proximity.  I wonder if I can also make the assumption that the speaker came back to this town to take care of the "she" in the first stanza.  What I can tell about this stanza is that the mention of Stevie Nicks and "Edge of Seventeen" adds a sense of time more so than thirty years ago.  The former adds a sense of mood to the time -- as though it was a time for the speaker to escape.

I take her call outside,
stand away from the smokers,
half-truth I'm at the mall.

Note how these lines are all pretty much endstopped.  This adds to the feeling of panic and urgency not only with the "her" but also the speaker as well.  The single line of "half-truth I'm at the mall."  Adds an element of dialogue but also adds to the omniscience of the speaker as though the speaker has to tell someone that he's speaking a half-truth.

She slurs a request:
milk of magnesia
and that other thing--
she can't remember

At this point, I think the "her" figure in the poem is a mom.  This note I made could be when I read it a second time, but looking back, there wasn't any indication that this was a mother-son type of relationship.  This could be a grandmother-grandson relationship or sister-brother relationship.  I think the clues of being a mother-son relationship is there in the second stanza, but nothing is solidified until the next stanza which puts context on "why now" for this poem, but also adds nuance.

But I remember
when I was a boy,
she told me about the mythical
Japanese custom ubasute:
a grown son lifts 
his aged mother on his back,
delivers her to a mountain,
leaves her to die.

With a few lines, ubasute is defined pretty well.  So a question.  Why not introduce this myth in the beginning of the poem?  It's because the myth ubasute is secondary for the audience.  The tension between mother and son is built up in the first three stanzas, but not how anyone feels about the situation.  With the introduction to the myth, there's an implication that the son could feel burdened by taking care of his mom or that the son wants to relinquish the care of his mother to something else.  This is the crux of the poem because the speaker needs to address this myth in relation to his relationship.

I'll come pick you up
after chemo, I say
and hang up, realizing
she's already cradled
by the mountain.

The first two lines of the this stanza is a nice play.  Butted up against the myth, the speaker who is on the phone is going to pick up his mom -- physically and metaphorically; however, the enjambment shows this kind of release of tension when it's a normal pick up after chemo.  The commentary about her already cradled by the mountain is interesting.  It's as though she's already dying and he acknowledges that, but also that she's dying alone.

The waft of cigarette smoke
and hint of manure
in Santa Rosa air usher me
back into the restaurant.
the hostess smiles,
welcomes me--clueless
I have come and gone.

I was thinking of place in a poem like this.  This makes me think that this is part of a collection (which it is) and not a poem meant to stand alone.  The poem does stand alone, but works better in conjunction with other poems.  Is what ties this poem place, the relationship, the speaker's mental process?  It's all of it.  The last lines of the poem brings back that tension of being there and not being there and how fluid those feelings are in those situation against a static backdrop: a dying mother, a time long past, and a place that never changes.