while we can’t take back our youth
we can relive it in our children’s eyes
that is why
as much as i hate spending my Sunday
afternoon shivering in an indoor pool
while it is windy and fifty outside,
i must take joy in the excited
thrills of three girls
who play games,
splash each other and me,
and never wipe the smiles
away from their cheeks,
telling me time and time again
how much they love me
for bringing them here.
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.
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
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.
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.
1. Sore muscles: a recorded memory of my crash
2. Fixed bike with gears that switch like butter
3. Three beautiful girls
4. Pancakes for breakfast
5. Strawberries in season to go with the pancakes
6. Cross stitching, so relaxing
7. A quilt made by my friend and bought by my husband
8. Two pairs of shoes for Isabella: $8.63
9. New bike helmet (silver to match my bike)
10. Prime rib
11. The last of Dad’s prime rib that they saved for my birthday!
12. Prime rib, second helping
13. Cooked carrots cooked with the prime rib
14. Asparagus (in season!!)
15. Made-from-scratch chocolate cake
16. I didn’t have to bake
17. French vanilla ice cream to go with the cake
18. Fixing the fucking bridging certificates so they’d print
19. 3.8 mile hike
20. View of the flatirons
21. A trail that is accessible by the stroller
22. Girls who tell stories to each other along the trail
23. A survival kit that includes two bottles of Riesling
24. A shirt nice enough to wear to work
25. Rain that pours only once we’re back at the car
26. Printing all the bridging certificates for free
27. All my Facebook birthday wishes
28. The silly ecards Elizabeth sent
29. Earl Grey tea
30. Green olives stuffed with blue cheese and garlic
31. Hershey’s Special Dark
32. The perfect, most surprisingly romantic husband in the world
i don’t want to be this parent
but sometimes the anger boils up
and overflows, spewing ash
that blocks my love for you
it’s still there (the love), hot
magma in the depths of my
hollowed out mountain, but
it’s a slow and heavy river.
you are asleep by the time
the ash settles, gray streaks
of its tiny particles on your cheeks,
and i will not wake you.
the clouds are slow and heavy at dawn,
mimicking my magma as you wake
and i take you into the hollow,
wrapping you in the warmth of my love.
you are not what i thought
and it’s tearing me up
though for once i won’t
say a word about it
but i am disappointed
having to come home this way
trying to shed the mood
that infiltrates my daughter
her exhausted screams
echo through the house
so that i cannot hear
the others’ gurgling happiness
in my soul i reach for her
but my hands, my arms are here
because i’m burned right now
and she’ll sizzle at my touch.
it’s not you, but my blindness,
my greener pastures journey
that has led me right back to
where i never wanted to be again.
as if she knows this, she calls out
in panting gasps, searching for
an answer, a reason, that neither
of us will ever be able to find.
sometimes i think i should hold them in
and hide myself behind a wall of demureness
or feign politeness beneath a shadow of civility
i know they send shockwaves through crowds
and cause murmurs and looks among friends
and send shivers up my mother’s spine
sometimes i think i should hold them in
because what role am I modeling for my girls
who seem to have opinions growing from their mouths?
but then I think, holding them in would mean
holding in my strength, my courage, myself,
and isn’t that the person I want them to know?
sometimes I think I should hold them in
but my words are not reigns and people aren’t tame:
on the inside, they’re wild like me, I know it.
and my words (offensive or not) allow them
to see for one moment (could be an hour)
what it’s like on the other side of the fence.
the same one that kisses
each daughter’s cheek
and whispers, “I love you”
a thousand times a week
the lips that open and close
over organically local food
and delectable chocolate
that brings on the best mood
the crooked and aging teeth
that bare themselves in grins
filled with laughter and love
and inglorious sins
this mouth is surely sore with vice
though can just as easily love
because what I say is who I am
not just who you were thinking of.
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