choices

Blanket

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Things that mystify me this morning:
clouds that brag of stubbornly stuck rain,
suggestions of an activity that
they then don’t want to participate in,
you.

Yes, you. At every chance you
leave me out in the cold,
procrastinate and passively aggress
your coexistence with mine.

Yet, you expect me to cut the threads
on every stitch that’s holding me together
to meet your needs, to cover you,
when I’ve barely enough warmth myself.

It’s all right. I know that you don’t know
how to sew, but really? Pick up a needle,
read a manual, buy some cloth, and
weave your threads into another blanket.
Mine’s taken.

Reach for What is Right

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Your happiness reaches through the screen
and pulls at my heart
three thousand miles away,
popping tears (first of joy)
(then of anguish) into my eyes.

You stand behind him
at his Aruban birthday meal,
matching grins and goatees,
your hands intertwined,
two boys as happy as
lonely children granted
a whole day to spend with mom,
two lovers granted
their wish of a life together.

I want to reach out and capture
the purity of your emotion,
the love that exudes from
a depth that They will never reach,
and show the world
just how right you are
(right for each other,
right to love the one
your heart tells you to love).

And as the tears creep into my eyes
every time I place your photo in my mind,
I know that I will continue to reach,
reach, reach for what I know is right
even as the anguished tears tell me
that They think I (you) (we) are wrong.

Lines

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Definitions of shallow:
of little depth,
varying only slightly
from a horizontal line,
not capable of serious thought,
you.

You don’t agree?
With a click of a button
you eliminate all openness
from your life,
easily closing the door
on words that vary
only slightly
from your horizontal line.

I would try to pry you open,
but I am swimming
in the depths
of my own zig-zagging
serious thoughts,
unable to waste a breath
on lines that follow the
horizon into nowhere.

May Daughters

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Mythili

With pride, you grin to show
your mouth with its bloody hole
(your first lost tooth),
palming the remnant of an apple
that you tuck behind your back
like a puppy hiding her tail

“That’s great. Where’s the tooth?”
Bewilderment clouds your smile.
“I swallowed it.”
“That’s too bad,” I try empathy,
but it has broken through your doubt,
and giant droplets of loss
form at the corners of your eyes.

We make a mad-dashed search for Blankey,
and soon you are in my lap,
cuddling your tears away
as if you were still my toddler,
not the soon-to-be-kindergartener
who has just reached another milestone.

Isabella

One evening of defiance
(its pursuing punishment causing
a head-thrusting tantrum into your pillow)
has led us to the deal we make today:
show me you can behave
and I will grant your wish.

Bribery is the secret that every parent keeps,
and you are mostly silent in the trailer
of our long bike ride,
asking only three questions
along the 41-mile route:
“Are we lost?”
“Are we almost there?”
“Can we stop at the playground?”

You follow along the Girl Scout activities,
budding in line and asking questions,
only twice intertwining your hand with your friend’s
to identify shapes in clouds, to dance,
and when the long day comes to and end,
I pull you into my arms,
whisper what you want to hear,
in three words forgiving us both.

Riona

Though the time is short,
you insist on helping make dinner rolls.
You and Mythili fight over
stirring the flour,
patting the dough,
and who gets to sit on the counter.

I’m as flustered as a
bird with broken wings,
hopping about around you
and trying to get the job done.

“I wish we had a kitchen with an island
so you girls could be on the other side.”
Your response is so simple.
“I wish we had a ping pong room in the
basement, but first we need a bigger basement.”

And just like that,
I have forgotten about my broken wings,
my flustered flurry.
I hand you the dough
that you round into a ball too small
and smile, my frenzy tucked
quietly behind me.

Only One

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You were the Only One I chose.
My sister would call me from New York
and ask periodically.
“Only One?” she would say,
her voice apprehensive and expectant.

I knew. I always knew, even then.

Perfect. Small town,
old architecture,
friendly professors,
far away from home,
one of the few with
a major in creative writing.

How could you deceive me?
Your price tag floating down
from the clouds and stabbing me
in year one, your ridiculous parties,
your drunken frats and sisterhoods,
the teachers who were too snobbish
to help me with the simplest questions.

But I can’t say I didn’t follow you,
didn’t tuck my gumption into my pocket,
pack my bags, and head east.

It didn’t take long before I realized,
filing cards in the catalog at my
tiresome, tedious, minimum wage and hours
library job (the one that made me gag
about going into a library for years afterward),
that I wanted to be a teacher.

So even if you didn’t hand me my dream
(as you had promised in your glossy brochure),
the wind blew me west again
and my Only One stayed put,
waiting for another deception.

Uncertainty

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You are blinded by
what you choose not to see
so blinded by it
that you will never be free

I see it inside you
waiting for its chance
to break through the
monotony of your forced dance

But you refuse to
pull back the black curtain
and shed light on
what I know is quite certain.

Let’s not argue,
but agree to disagree
because your roller coaster
is too many hills high for me.

Ten Million Shades of Green

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for less than you paid for the
plastic tarp that covers the addition
you’re attaching to your
6,000-square-foot, $10 million home,
we enjoyed the same priceless views

a sky as blue as God’s eyes
with puffy white clouds dancing
in front of distant snowcapped peaks,
the green hills and weeping willows
decorating the winding, perfectly flat path,
the ponds with cattails, the canal,
the endless crabapples dressed in
pink and white flowers for spring,
the sprouting green bushes,
your gorgeously manicured yards,
green grasses galore,
green buds of leaves popping
out on trees as tall as back east.

your green may have seven figures,
but mine has ten million shades,
strength in my calves,
a content-with-books-to-read-in-the-trailer
oldest daughter,
and priceless views
that I didn’t pay a penny for.

Release

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a pile of bricks behind my back
held with twine that tears into my palms
(blood spilling as it rips the skin,
blood pouring onto them)

i can’t release it

every now and then a brick
will fall from the pile,
forcing me to stop my forward motion,
bend over, bring it back

i can’t release it

a pile of bricks behind my back
held with twine that tears into my muscles
(ripping them apart at the seams,
ripping me apart at the seams)

i can’t release it

every now and then a brick
will fall from the pile,
forcing me to stop, to mortar it
to the wall i try to repair

i can’t rebuild it

a pile of bricks behind my back
held with twine as thin as a line of fire
(burning me up with every step,
burning them up with every step)

i will release it

Waterfall

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where does it come from?
the hand slapping strict rules of my youth?
the overworked and underpaid parents?
or the soul, searching for reconciliation?

i will never know

but i work to suppress it,
the overstressed frustration
that overflows onto them,
a waterfall of impatience
out of which they cannot swim

i am looking for the pool
where the river has settled after the fall,
where we can jump in and out,
never worrying about head bangings
or rapid currents,
where the water washes over us
in cool, complete calm.

i know it is there, waiting
(perhaps on the other side of the cliff)
and we can find it if we
take each other’s hands,
hope for the best,
and dive.

My Inner Voice

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someone else would leave it there
walk it home
or make a phone call crying
but I find no tears inside my skull
nor can I find a reason to stop

instead I hear my inner voice
telling me that I’m OK
(even if I seethe in pain)
I pick myself and the bike up
wipe the blood
fix the chain
and almost reach my daily goal

someone else would call me crazy
or tell me I’m too risky
but I have already fit that bill
lost my mind somewhere
along the bike path when I was sixteen
and I don’t care to find it

instead I hear my inner voice
telling me that I have a story
that my daughters will retell
proudly pointing to my bruises, scabs
as if they are their own
(their own strength,
carrying them forward
when they wish to turn back)

someone else would give it up
admit defeat
but all I hear is my inner voice
telling me that I am who I am
and (for them, for you)
I could never be someone else.