daughters

The Theatre

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We stand in tights, leggings, skirts,
a tie and jacket, dolled up as much as
our fellow theatre-goers
waiting for the train.

Our breaths form miniature clouds
as they enter the humid night air.
We shuffle our feet, clap our hands,
pull up our hoods, rejoice at the lights
of the train curving around the tracks.

Everyone says, How old are they?
Going to the theatre? Shrek tonight?
Beautiful girls, beautiful, beautiful girls.
As we stand clutching the pole, no room.

It couldn’t be better. The pictures we took
(soon to be Christmas cards), the lipstick
now smearing across their cheeks,
the laugh-your-ass-off musical of our dreams.

Four, six, almost eight, I tell them.
They say it only gets better. But how can it
be better than this? Dinner at a local restaurant,
riding the train downtown, the theatre,
three little, little girls as proud as new parents?

We’ll see. For now, I take their tiny hands in mine,
dash through the tunnel with lights that
ring at their anxious pats, their pink jackets
and polka-dot tights reminding me of the youth
we all have within us, the youth, the love we crave.

Is This My Year?

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is this my year of
baggage dug up from
depths beneath the earth
where i thought i’d buried
every last tag of remorse?

is this my year of
bricks stacked up along
a wall that keeps me
from where i am
and what i ache
for on the other side?

is this my year of
rain poured over my soul,
quenching the ardor
beneath my skin,
drowning my senses
until i can no longer breathe?

is this my year,
my year that i have to
let them go
let them go
let it, let it go?

Cheeks

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just as my students pull
like a dead weight
at the back of my brain
she looks up
her four-year-old cheeks
as smooth as innocence
and whispers,
“Mama, I wish
you didn’t have to work.”

i can’t hold them back
but she studies my family tree necklace
as the salt drips down
my thirty-two-year-old cheeks
as rough as pain
and whispers,
“I love you so much, Mama.”

and it is about all i can do
it is about all i can do
it is about all i can do
holding her
without words
her cheek against my cheek
is about all i can do.

Take Me In

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take me in
i’m surrounded
i give in
pink purple white balloons
pink red streamers
a Guinness cake
homemade pumpkin pie
take me in

take me in
for a day’s preparation
for a simple birthday celebration
six years old
and she wanted the beer cake
the pumpkin pie
small and special
for the actual day

take me in
because never in my childhood
did i spend a day
an entire weekend day
preparing for a party
that she’ll remember
small and simple
in her mind tomorrow
next year
the moment
she closes her eyes
for the last time

take me in
i’ll be there by her side
when she
opens her presents
welcomes her guests
plays her games
closes her eyes
and makes her wish
our wish
for that moment
that we could
all be six again.

Through My Eyes

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i need for you to see it
through my eyes
though i know
you’ll never understand.

it doesn’t help me to know
just how horrible it is
for someone else.
no matter how hard i try.

i crave what i have lost
what i dreamt most about
what is gone
and cannot be replaced.

this is a poem
filled with words
none of which can describe
what i see through my eyes.

Forever Season

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they are small still
but not small enough.
i look at the magnet
of the fat-cheeked, bald baby
holding up the picture
of our young niece.

there she sits now,
her cheeks hollow, thin,
running her fingers across
the iPad and reading aloud
to the small sisters
who sit on either side of her.

how can this be?
how can i remember so well
the clearest moment of my life,
when i first became her mother,
their mother,
and it was just a moment ago,
i wish it were just a moment ago.

i want to take my Mason jars
and instead of canning tomatoes
trap beneath the lids
seal tight for a forever season
the years that have slipped
out of the bubbling steam of my kitchen,
out into the yard, the cul-de-sac, the school,
trap them there and stack
my three beauties in their youth,
displayed in sparkling rows
of love along my pantry shelf.

Reminder

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thanks for the quick
and painful reminder
of why i never ask you for anything.
i’ll just tuck it under my sleeve
with all the others
that are crammed somewhere
in my layers of clothing
and try to use your reminder
(and its inability to keep me warm)
as a reminder
of how much more
i need to
reach out to them,
strip them free
of useless, painful notes
and wrap them in
the warmth of love
that your reminder
has tried to take from 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.

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).

Autumnal Arrival

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fall arrived with yesterday’s wind
just as i said a storm was coming.
rain pelts the windows,
startles the sidewalks.
absent for months,
when summer needed its moisture,
it mocks the golden-red leaves
and glistens the world with
the season that they have
ached for, begged for, for months.

i miss yesterday
when the sun still streaked
across the plains
and shorts were still acceptable.
and the girls? they spent
every afternoon, evening, night
relishing in the warmth
of a gluttonous season.

but here it is
a reminder of what we want
(to have or to let go of)
and it is here to stay
(autumn? here to stay?)
change is here to stay.