beliefs

Layers

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I am in a hollow now
wishing it weren’t so damp
the wind beating at my branches
as i reach for warmth

instead i double up my layers
like a bear fattening for winter
making my insular depth
as welcoming as the wind will allow.

there’s time to think, to look at
the small ones surrounding me
more closely, to hear the silence that
plays behind the gales’ haunting chords.

perhaps i have chosen this place,
perhaps it has chosen me. but i
will wait until i hear more than silence.
i will wait until i hear peace in my heart.

October Daughters

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Isabella

you still want to hold my hand
at the skate rink
though i know it won’t be long
before i’ll be remembering this day,
just as i now remember our first time here
when you stood in size eights
under the lights,
sashaying without moving your legs,
a two-year-old on a dancing mission,
and here you are now,
seven almost eight years old,
begging to skate with me
while we still have a moment
left of this afternoon,
this evening,
this moment of your life.

Mythili

the words of your imaginary worlds
have developed
into a complex combination
of English, Spanish,
and your own invented language.
you will still take
two toothpicks,
a doll head and a rubber band,
or, like today,
folded up pieces of cardboard,
and create stories
as intricate and imaginative as you.
but you are not the same
with your kindergarten knowledge,
your wealth of new friends,
your step out into
the world i know i can’t keep you from.
i will let you go,
but still listen
to your stories,
hoping that one day
you and I will both remember
who you were then,
who you are now.

Riona

it is year two
of you handing me apples to core,
of dumping in enough cinnamon
to fill the house with,
of squeezing lemons,
of tasting remnants of fruit.
i tell you,
Next year you’ll be in school
when I make applesauce,
and you answer,
I hope I go to my sisters’ school,
completely unaware of
the aching sadness in my voice,
of how much I will miss you here.
And I know that’s the way it
ought to be, I know it.
But knowing your innocence,
your focus on now,
is why I can’t control my ache
that grows and grows
just as I can’t control
how you grow and grow.

Internal Song

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i’m the one who can’t sit still
whose lazy days are always filled
with activities to keep at bay
every moment of every day

why do i work so hard, so long?
to answer my internal song
my mother’s steadfastness asks
only that i complete my tasks.

for all my life i’ll be her child
walking door to door, mile to mile
i’m the one who can’t sit still
without busy-ness, my life’s not filled.

Use What Fits

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i drank too much
and learned that i can fit
a day’s worth of clothes
a bungee cord
a pair of gloves
an oversized computer cord
a MacBook
and a six-pack of vanilla porter
in my saddle bag
(though the bike will tip if i let go).

this is a list poem
so let me add
that with the shower
the lack of wash cloths
and the realization
that towels were in the dryer,
he and i shared a single hand towel
to dry our dripping skin,
got out the exercise ball
and had us a real ball
(punny, right? it was.)

what could i fit in a Friday?
a five a.m. bike ride
seven classes
three 200-hundred-word posts
a happy two hours
with five friends at the bar
finishing my latest novel
dinner with my family
and love with my husband.

Room of Punishment

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i heard what happened
in a roundabout way
as all families today,
over Internet connections
and telephone lines,
communicating the news
of those who can’t communicate.

i cringed in my mixture of pain, guilt,
of love, sorrow, my emotions
breeding from those moments
in my childhood when i sat,
holed up under my blankets
in a dark room of punishment,
wishing i could be instead
in your arms, your wet kisses
rough on my cheek, your
planned-out dinners and desserts
waiting for approval,
your I love yous ending every sentence.

instead, you have been moved
from one dark room of punishment
to another, shuffled around
like a naughty child,
no parent (child or grandchild)
able to solve the dilemma of your age.

i am one of them,
two generations down,
with young children of my own
who will never sit in a room
wishing for your warmth.

all i can do with
the electronically-presented words
still ringing in my ears,
is hole up in my room of punishment
and wish that i had called you
before they took your phone away,
wish that i had visited
before He took your mind away.

Essay

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Can I write a long essay
instead of creating a PowerPoint?
should I hear words such as this
when writing, writing, writing is my life
and that is all he’s asking to do
and all that I’m denying him?

Yes I should, because I am building
twenty-first century learners
who know how to create action buttons
and add in Googled graphics
transitions that pop and sparkle,
and change the colors of their fonts.

Yes, these are the important skills
that will carry them into English 101
where they will sit amongst 600 others
and struggle to understand thesis,
paragraphs, critical thinking that I,
with this PowerPoint, have denied him.

Borrowing

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my new favorite band
sings just to me
when you have pain or debt
who do you borrow from?

i think of Dunbar again
(just one riotous day)
and the root, of course,
in my love affair with words.

debt: Latin (debere), to owe
how ironic, rhymes with borrow
and i wonder if the Avetts, whose
name sounds like the Latin avis (bird)

are asking me (they sing to me)
if i borrow pain (can we borrow suffering?)
or if debt is a form of pain
or if it is life we borrow.

i will never know.
i am just a listener of songs
like all the other listeners,
borrowing their music to bury my pain.

Troop Leader

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it may have taken two years
of counting and miscounting
of piling up paperwork
and learning to manage
twenty five-then-six-now-seven-year-olds,
of arguing parents
and camping trip disasters
and never forgetting how to forget,
but here i am,
Girl Scout troop leader,
just for a moment feeling like
I’ve got this down,
I can do this,
I can count and organize,
I can be just what I need to be
in the eyes of
my daughters
their daughters
the daughters of the world
(or world, the one we want to give them).

Mole

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you are a cancerous mole
on otherwise flawless skin
appearing from nowhere
but settling in with a vicious sting
as if you have always belonged.

perhaps you have been there
hiding beneath scabs and
thin strands of golden hair,
waiting in the depths of tissue
to release your venom.

now you haunt my fingers
as they try to dance across
the once-smooth place you’ve
chosen to poison. but i know
that you won’t be here long.

i swallow the thought of your release
with these pills of gratitude
that i have purchased without you knowing.
you may have sneaked into my life,
but your exit will be quick and painless.

War Paint

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it started with innocence
plastered on little girls’ faces
like war paint,
pink, blue, ready for battle.

after a long drive,
a stop at the store,
and a mile up the mountain,
after sifting through
golden remnants of fall
and finding treasures
in sticks, under rocks,
the war paint began to smear.

dripping down into the vessels
of their wrinkle-less cheeks,
the pink, the blue, the blood
awakened them to a new reality.

(i want to take my brush,
soft as silk on their skin,
dip it back into the bucket
and paint them, my young,
until they are blinded from
the horrors of everyday war)

but it is too late. for it
dripped and seeped and slithered
into their eyesmouthporeshearts
as they sat awestruck in
the back seat my (motherly) hands
pushed them into.

as their lips wrapped themselves
around their Sausalito saltwater taffy
(blue and pink, like war paint,
a gift brought home, home)
they took in the scene, faces
in the window, knees on the seat,
all innocence wiped away.

shattered glass. hushed crowd.
distant (gapingly absent) sirens.
blue and red blinking lights.
knees on the pavement.
blood on the pavement.
bodies on the pavement.

it ended with…
a long drive,
a stop at the store,
and sticky faces and hands,
war paint, pink, blue,
faded from their first battle.