daughters

Dots on a Map

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yes, it was Hitler.
he gathered them up,
took family members one by one,
and like feathers
tossed into a torrent,
the survivors fled home

that’s my first dot

their home across the sea,
ancestors’ ashes scattered
into a grey Polish sky,
is what brings them to me

my second dot

a rejection letter,
a flyer in a park,
three daughters and a school
quite fluent in Spanish
who years later would fly in
two Spaniards
to fill every moment of our lives

my third dot

was it her Inquisition,
or Hitler’s wrath,
or the coming together
of lines on a child’s paper
that connected the dots,
the dots on a map
that make my dream a reality?

three Colorado girls.
Spaniards full of life.
a doctor from Jerusalem.
with a few words,
desires both evil and good,
we are all connected.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at These Brownies

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Modeled after Wallace Stevens’
“Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”

I
my grandmother’s hands
sifting the too-expensive flour
to make my father his
50th birthday cake
(the last time she would show me
her Italian kitchen)

II
the torn-apart bag
flour spilling at the reams
and the brownie recipe of my dreams

III
the first bite of brownie
a culinary orgasmic attack
against the tongue
of every sweet i’d
previously put into my mouth

IV
the shy nudge
the first placement
of a brownie on another’s desk
a reach for friendship

V
imagine a bicycle
a saddlebag
a laptop
five pounds of brownies
1029 feet of elevation gain
gratitude at the end of the ride

VI
Thursday evening
sun setting over every season
a thick black spoon
eight ingredients
black brownie mix
as thick as hope

VII
brownie thank-you cards
mysteriously appear in my mailbox

VIII
handwritten notes
begging to be included on
The Brownie List

IX
popping peppermint in at Christmas
and my daughter’s two-month-later birthday
because everyone has a favorite brownie

X
the joy that rests in your mouth
after eating the brownie
and the joy that rests in your heart
after sharing the taste–
they are one and the same

XI
the small hands
that crack eggs
that beg for a taste
that show the mercy of generosity
as together we make brownies

XII
4500 applicants
an ocean
an opportunity of a lifetime
a store without my brownie ingredients

XIII
seven of the best years of my life
a semi-broken heart
and all the brownies
i will never be able to bake

April (2012) Daughters

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Riona

you speak to almost no one.
we see your shy face
hide behind your mama
as if a couple of years
were lost along your upbringing.

yet,
on stage,
your Peruvian chicken costume
in full polka-dot glory,
straw wings,
paper orange beak and all,
you are a star
as you dance front center,
the folk guitar song
giving new life
to my littlest angel.

Mythili

with focused face
looking so much
like a small adult
that i sometimes forget
you’re a child,
you create art.

a windmill in
perfect proportions
copied from a book,
the oil pastel coloring
as detailed as a
gallery painting

the Girl Scout
finger puppet
where you sit surrounded
by Daisies whose
mothers assist in every step,
you speak not a word
but work diligently
on cutting, gluing,
mastering your art.

this is your gift from God,
this is your gift to the world.

Isabella

you shine your light
wherever you go,
upon your persistent pleas
for a gecko,
a cowboy belt,
or dinner alone with mama.

you direct plays
in the backyard,
setting up obstacle courses
and circuses,
your siblings and friends
falling under your spotlight
to shine in your presence

baby sister mimics all you do,
and at first irritated,
you give in to flattery,
making a parade around the house
and reading all her favorite stories,
your brightness shining
on all you do, see, touch

Three Birds in a Row

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the light right now
as i kiss my girls goodnight?
it is unlike any other sunset,
the clouds a perfect concoction
of pink and gray,
and they hold tight to my neck
and beg me for stories of Medusa
that Silverstein told them about,
that i ad-lib with college knowledge.
i’m going to college,
they chime in,
three birds in a row,
so i can know as much as you
and they are my girls
through and through

A Million Times More

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the emotions are so intense
when the right song is played
when my girls say the right words

i cannot fathom my life without them
they sit under green blanket
as i write this
my oldest inflecting as needed
the words she learned years ago to read

my middle girl?
the best combination
of crone and imaginative maiden
fantasy worlds mixed with logic

and the baby?
idealism at its best
all the things we’ve dreamed of
wrapped up in a five-year-old’s summary

i cannot fathom
my life
without these girls
(i’ve said it before
i’ve named a poem
i’ll say it a million times more)

March (2012) Daughters

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Isabella

you pop out of bed
with a craving for peppermint tea–
it’s been a long night,
filled with the turmoil
of the ever-adamant stomach bug.
you should be sleeping,
wanting to watch mindless television.
instead you run on the treadmill,
make circles with your bike
and spend a three-hour afternoon
entertaining your friends and siblings
along every corner of the park

you may walk around the house
as cheeky as a teenager (age nine)
wearing your iPod like
an artificial limb,
but on days like this,
your boundless energy ever present,
i know just how much
you are my daughter.

Mythili

you are ferocious, tenacious
in everything you do,
whether it’s your insistence on hunger
(even soon after eating)
or your commitment
to your best friend,
sharing nicknames with her,
demanding to spend school nights
sleeping over at her house,
and loving her, fighting with her
as if she is the other sister
you never had

i know you are only seven,
but i see so much
of an adult in your
not-quite-innocent level of dedication;
i can already picture
the woman you will be

Riona

the exuberant smile
that carried you out the door
after them
has disappeared as you
plod back in,
morose expression of want
dripping from your face

you point to the scratch,
a tearless, silent cry for attention,
and i put all i have
(my ice cold beer bottle)
against the unbleeding skin.
pop! there it is again,
the exuberant smile
of the littlest angel
whose delicate pleas for love
are always so easily satisfied

Good

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just like a baby
my baby curls in to cuddle
her small body
still fits into my lap

i can’t replace the hours we’ve lost
the years we’ve lost
or fill the ache in my heart
for the good i’m trying to do
that doesn’t do me any good

but when her tears creep down?
when she won’t go for a night of fun
because she’s missed me too much,
when the weeks have flooded by
in a pile of work
that i’m so fucking good at
when i can’t just be her mother?

it is too much
and i am five again
just like her
searching for my mother’s arms
to comfort the sadness
that rests so heavily on my soul

Across the Ice

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i don’t fit in here,
this suburban-sports-mom place–
ice skates and hockey pucks,
wealth dripping from
concession-stand ketchup
onto Gucci bags,
iPhones snapping
pictures of perfection
(pictures i will never take)

she wants to be a part of it all,
not for one second
jaded by the disorganization,
the preferred treatment of boys,
the simplicity of the lesson
she’s too skilled for and
that costs as much as i make in a day

i want to give it to her
and take her home
all in the same moment,
to tell her she won’t lose her childhood
if she spends her afternoons
playing in the cul-de-sac
with the homeschooled,
underexposed neighbors

but her eyes?
her weeks of anticipation?
i can’t take back this gift,
this inherent joy
that will carry her across the ice
and into her miniature version
of the dream
we all have inside ourselves

January (2012) Daughters

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Isabella

since age two,
in intermittent spurts
you creep downstairs
in the dark hours of morning,
your voice cautious,
Daddy?
(because you know me well enough
to leave me be)

he won’t wake up,
(you are almost nine)
and i send you back up to your room,
telling you that you’re old enough now
to soothe yourself back to sleep

you leave the room sobbing.
i toss and turn
in my already-restless sleep
worrying over the scar i’d created,
a bitter hole in our relationship
you’d remember till you die

when i wake you for school,
you have a happy story
about little Laura and locusts
from the book that soothed you,
fully forgiving me for nighttime selfishness

i think back to my childhood,
how i would have treated my parents
to silence for a day,
pouting in defiance

perhaps you,
insomniac, crazy, loud-mouthed you (me)
are just a little different,
so subtle that i couldn’t catch
your drying tears to see
the beauty of your individual soul
(i see it now,
and i am so proud to be your mama)

Mythili

you are a young woman,
though seven,
you prove time and again
how easily words will come–
you have backtalk and sass
like a teenager
and know just what not to say

one punishment is enough
to teach you a lifelong lesson,
and you take your crone’s hands
and draw pictures
with delicate detail
only mastered by true artists

how you came to be mine,
with your fierce independence
and longing for touch
while simultaneously craving
to be left alone,
will mystify me as you move
into the next step
of your beautiful life.

Riona

you will not speak
at times specified only in
your quiet mind,
a mystery to all of us
who wish to hear your words

i know you hide behind
those dark lashes
a collection of truths
that will someday spill out

now you save your words
for strangers in your first
cookie outings
while we wait
at home, at school,
for the thumb to come out,
for the gentle voice
to roll over our minds
and bring us to the real you.

Nothing Short of Art

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we sit in central citified sun
sipping smoothies and lattes,
munching on freshly baked croissants
and chatting with strangers
on a day so warm it can’t be
the third week of January
(a beauty we all share
as we peel off our winter coats)

they skip alongside on an impromptu adventure,
moving along the zero street,
playing pig and picking out dates
on ovular stamps in concrete.

we enter the train store
and examine the pure wonder
of details so tiny, humans
standing knee-deep in plexiglass water,
monkeys climbing up a fallen-apart billboard,
and fast-moving trains. one declares,
it is nothing short of art

later i pedal into the wind
around the dam and up the hill
until i see the circular beauty of the lake,
and its curvacious path
interweaves me with a hundred pairs of legs,
all taking advantage
of this day like no other

before i am home
i am home,
and can almost forget
the tears whose all night sting
kept my eyes bleeding till morning,
the two dark, cold miles of separation,
and the hollowness of our words
that find their way
into the poems he wishes i wouldn’t write.