extreme poverty
keeps parents from saving sons
live to work and die
but ten beats away
greed scalpels addicted souls
work to live and die
choices
Life Sentences
the aches and fevers
mid-week stay-with-me stresses
medicine won’t work
she came in a dream
all better (never better)
if only the truth
i hate trapped secrets
the solid weight of her truth
worth liquefying
they have stopped asking
bless the sick season for that
(she’ll be sick for life)
losing a baby,
making candy memories,
alcoholism:
all life sentences
that never bring forth the dream
that they’d imagined
Working Mother
she asks to cuddle
begs for me to put down work
endless hard choices
Social (In)Justice
pitiful attempt
to show the world justice
ditching the walkout
after school, they beg
for classwork i can’t explain
in four short minutes
but the ones who stayed
sit, work with me for hours
tackling learning
one interrupts us
asking where the food bank is
to feed his family
i’m taken aback
a perfect student, born here
why is he hungry?
then, the Taliban:
lost her mother in Iran
falling off a horse
social injustice
propels their failed walkout day
served up after school
a dish to take home
a harder bite to swallow
as schools save us all
Rules of Childhood
challenging poses
stave off pre-holiday cold
virus can’t beat me
candy-scented home
bowls brimming with sugar dreams
homage to his mom
girls learn gift giving
how to think beyond themselves
wrapped in red ribbon
i’d wrap happiness
and place it under the tree
if it would save them
childhood rules us
far beyond its eighteen years
may theirs be happy
Birthday Blessings
Friday afternoon
lights fall to meet autumn nights
but you are not here
knowing, my heart aches
secrecy’s not my style
but brutal truth hurts
i’d take back the words
but they’re lost in confession
forgiven, lost, here
just as you should be
beside me with hugs in hand
building my haiku
instead she shows me
engraved Jack Daniels bottle
twenty-one years out
i tell her i’ll cry
and write her a poem later
about that bottle
never in his mouth
infancy or twenty-one
may he rest in peace
you and i would cry
after she left us drinking
but you’re not here, friend
the way the world works
i won’t have you beside me
twenty-one years out
Piles
flooded by piles
poorly-written papers burn
insides of my eyes
my stalking student
piles breakfast, lunch, dinner
always needing help
close and lock the door
is what the experts tell me
what if that were me?
i bring home piles
that pile bags under eyes
and work in silence
quick pasta dinner
vibrant girls’ homework piles
i rush to the gym
breathe in, then breathe out
my body piles relief
yoga saves the day
School
i learned there’s no guilt
like the guilt of motherhood
my Tuesday lesson
tossing and turning
don’t turn remorse into gold
they make me feel old
whispers in the hall
worse than when i was in school
oh wait–i’m here. school.
we mock others’ pain
forgetting our own swallows
mixed up with sorrows
three deaths, intervention
wrap up semester’s longing
for life, a new life
we all want sunsets
bright red-circle memories
to bring back our youth
then we’d be in school
that captive institution
we couldn’t flee from
my Tuesday lesson:
mouth shut, sunsets disappear
mouth open, truth shines
Still
post-holiday blues
hit harshly with shocking news
life is bought… and used
i want to reach her
change winter into summer
make her heart stronger
instead i break words
exchange lies for the absurd
to still what they’d heard
it is a mistake
the asked-for silence i break
lies i cannot take
they’ll still question me
my face burning by degrees
bring me to my knees
have i lost a friend?
or would this have been her end?
demons she will tend
on the other side
of the shadow where she hides
i’m still on her side
Do the Math
so many years back
you sat behind me in math
and offered friendship
now my girls grumble
dress-ups and smiles now gone
where are my children?
i want them to live
to love like each day’s their last
will they forgive me?
i’m not eleven
though i remember too well
that ache from within
when nothing quite fits
but the soul you’re searching for
that you just can’t find
i want the smile
the go-with-me-anywhere
girls who i once had
i guess they’re gone now
lost in electronic maze
hearts closed to new friends
she looks just like you
it’s what i hear every day
just do the math, friend
she’s nothing like me
more brazen and justified
not like you and i
