i’ve worked so hard,
many years of pedaling,
vegetable infusion,
(just a bit of sweet)
and yet you hover
around my belly,
an obstinate parasite,
one that does not
suck me dry,
but clings to the hope
that you can take over
everything i don’t
want you to have.
Month: August 2011
Teach
if eighty-five percent
of EVERYONE
actually did what they
were supposed to do
then we wouldn’t need
pay for performance.
we could just…
teach.
what a concept.
Sør Ås Bîk Clüb
she wears a jersey
that shames us all
What will you do
it asks,
on your 70th birthday?
this on mile sixty-two
a record high day
where we pop out fully cooked
from sauna port-o-lets,
strap on our stinky helmets,
and try to beat the sun home
jerseys mock me:
sør ås bîk clüb
biker chicks
(with matching nest pics)
Ride the Rockies
and every other place
i don’t quite fit
men in drag
weave themselves up and down,
stopping to fix flats
and pose for pictures,
their exuberant rainbow
of wigs, skorts, and fishnets
bringing welcome laughter
the day begins with a sea
of hot air balloons
decorating the mountain-backed sky
and ends with free lunch,
an all-girl band,
and women who know
just where the road can take us.
Wait
in your absence
there is nothing but silence
i wait for your return
but the dead air is thick
choking back the guilt
that bubbles up
with work done
nothing left to do but wait
you will pour in
a waterfall cacophony of sound
take every waking moment
to be your exuberant selves
and i will feel a Saturday
that belongs to us
not me
Words
i sent the words
(there were clicks–
not yours)
i spent the time
(there were chips–
dark chocolate)
you didn’t respond
you couldn’t read
the words too thick
the chips already melted
you left them there for me
and i placed new words
under the light
words they shared in your absence
it was strange
having you walk in like that
not quite sure
if you should use your own words
or listen to ours
you waited
i wrote
(i always do)
you flipped off the light
that let them see
what i had written
in your usual manner
you ad-libbed
they laughed their usual laughs
but i managed to
feel less small
knowing they shared words with me
you stood in the back
video on
asking me a favor
(the chocolate
sitting in a back room
unrequested)
i took your center cut
put it in the microwave
and melted it for a perfect sundae
you won’t say a word
you will never know
just how warm
how perfectly cold
it tasted as i took my words
and swallowed them
The Cost of These Brownies
handwritten prices
on the grocery list
categorizing ingredients,
a spouse’s scrupulous pen
(cocoa: $2.76
chocolate chips: $2.38
it goes on)
several summer nightmares,
a bitter blog post,
and the hollowness
that can only come
with the absence of words
their bright faces
and innocent remarks,
the commentary carried
down the corridor,
begging for more
the bland baked cakes
from someone’s mix
hand in hand with
Friday’s sacred sweet desire
all the times
that can’t be added up
with calculators
of when they made a day,
saved a life,
or satisfied a fix
the small hands
that crack the eggs,
the small voice
that recites the recipe,
reminding me
once again
that from first bite
to last,
i am giving a taste
of chocolate
with an immeasurable price.
What If
what if i just typed
like a speed demon of keys,
like i didn’t have to think
about the letters
beneath my fingers
or how the only one
i truly know by heart is
backspace?
what if the computer took over
and i lost control of the words,
the letters spilling out
in foreign codes
that no one could understand?
what if Joyce took over my hands
and every thought that entered my mind
for twenty four hours
could appear before me,
flooding the world with
academic nonsense?
What if i learned how to type,
to really type
everything that is important,
to delete everything that’s not,
to leave space for everything in between?
The Big Day
i don’t want to think
of your new pink backpack,
your hand-me-down uniform,
or your first steps into kindergarten.
wasn’t it just yesterday
that we swung you in the car seat
into the hospital elevator,
calling you Mythili by mistake?
how can we move from birthday
to first day of school in one week?
it’s too much for this old mom,
this worked-through-baby-years mom.
but it will have to be.
tomorrow’s the big day,
the beginning of the endless
letting goes that you and i must face.
Dear Road
we were strangers.
i was afraid.
you could kill me with your cracks,
i could lose myself in you–
you are high and low,
curvacious and straight-laced,
everything in between.
you think you can beat me,
sometimes with wind,
other times extremities
of heat, cold
stinging my skin,
beckoning me with your endless gray.
we are no longer strangers,
you and i.
friends is too weak a word.
intimate companions
who share the sunrise view,
are tickled first by snow,
who see each other’s secrets.
so i will pound harder,
fearless now,
and pedal all the way down,
gravity and every last crack
you’ve tried to hide
exposed by the love
that has grown between us.
August (2011) Daughters
Riona
Five. FIVE. five…
you wear the pink taffeta dress
(pattern handed down
for fifty years)
a gathered waste,
scalloped pockets and sleeves,
plastic pearls to complete the couture.
you jump in and out of fountains,
climb plastic playground steps,
pretend with perfect attitude
(that encompasses all you are)
to blow the absent candles from your cake
we move from playing with new gifts
on hardwood (you offer me a pillow)
to party number two, where
you surround yourself with
breaking-down children and ask
only that i roast you a marshmallow
in the lightning-flash sky
and circle of warmth
you are five.
you dash to the car in the
pitch-black, too-far-from-city night,
your row of new lip balms in palm,
and before you will sleep,
you divide them evenly amongst sisters,
your generous heart more beautiful
than your perfect pink taffeta dress.
Mythili
it’s been a year, and
baby teeth are gone,
replaced by no-finger-sucking
straight white incisors
that have sent Blankey
to a closeted grave
with their grown-up appearance.
you have school friends now
who you won’t let go.
you know the way down the corridors,
will soon show baby sister,
and, as always,
you speak quite frankly
about the condition of your classroom,
the behavior of other students,
and your ability to stay on task.
how could these two adult teeth
bring deeper wisdom
to the little girl
who, from birth,
could already see the world
in a light
the rest of us can’t see?
Isabella
i find pictures of you
at five, six,
(pudgy cheeks and tiny teeth)
and look into your pale hazels,
your over-freckled cheeks,
hold you against me,
your head now at my shoulder,
and i know
i know
(though i’m afraid to write it now)
you are no longer a little girl.
you are my oldest,
will always be first,
will always move from one stage
to another before them,
will be the one to induce the most fear,
the most intense kind of love,
a kind i cannot describe here
(or to them)
one that is shared from those
moments in our babymoon
to those moments now when
you understand what they don’t,
when you give me the look
a reflection of my expression,
you, a shadow of me
who stands at my shoulder,
ready to grow.
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