in one week my life
will sprout a new leaf–
i hope to know
just where the wind will take me
as i add another ring
to my tree
will i blow to the east
and the sun that rises
so coldly each morning,
or stay west
where my roots are buried
as deep as my soul?
i wish i could see
the color of the bud
as it blossoms from my branches,
but only time will tell
just which way the wind will blow
a three thousand pound weight,
sacks of gold too heavy to lift.
if i could fill them with feathers
and build myself a pair of wings?
i would fly right into the sky
and release myself from monetary need
instead i face a financial dilemma–
drop the gold i can’t quite carry
into the gaping hole of a beast
who will swallow it whole and us too,
leaving behind nothing but wisps
lighter than feathers, unable to fly?
or hold fast to a dream that flies
into every moment of my sleeping wake,
forget the beasts that bear down on me,
and throw my sacks of gold into the sea
as i fly my way to a tomorrow that
i have waited for years to belong to me?
we have left the pretty pink bar,
beauty slipping from sky in silent flakes.
the roads are not icy yet,
but moist in anticipation:
the wipers push away drops
(we have no possibility of sliding)
i watch the silent storm
move into my city,
remembering him in eighth grade,
so tiny and cute,
turning around in social studies
and making fun of the teacher
he is not here,
but rides along the slick streets
inside my mind as i pull back
the cautious, modest man he has become,
a beauty in the Beauty Bar
with his grace and patience,
more perfect than any dress
he could ever create
for the runway of his dreams.
i hope my words are not
lost in translation, but
instead carried on wings of gold
across the sea,
where my dreams can take flight,
my family will prosper,
and my linguistic yearning
will meld into realistic love.
she wears a jersey
that shames us all
What will you do
it asks,
on your 70th birthday?
this on mile sixty-two
a record high day
where we pop out fully cooked
from sauna port-o-lets,
strap on our stinky helmets,
and try to beat the sun home
jerseys mock me:
sør ås bîk clüb
biker chicks
(with matching nest pics)
Ride the Rockies
and every other place
i don’t quite fit
men in drag
weave themselves up and down,
stopping to fix flats
and pose for pictures,
their exuberant rainbow
of wigs, skorts, and fishnets
bringing welcome laughter
the day begins with a sea
of hot air balloons
decorating the mountain-backed sky
and ends with free lunch,
an all-girl band,
and women who know
just where the road can take us.
stacks of multicolored blocks
lacework avenues weaving
sky touching over streams of cars
thick-trunked trees lost in shadow
bleeps and beeps choking the air
incongruous shiny signs
endless lines of legs
ceiling of constellations
click and squeak of metal wheels
linguistic rainbow of voices
center of opportunity, hope
Dear U2,
I am one of seventy thousand. And seventy thousand more in each of a hundred cities across the globe. Your circular stage, famous by now, lights up like a firecracker as you belt out the tunes. No one has given a second thought to sitting since you entered. We are drawn up like marionettes, arms in the air, tears in our eyes, screams caught like chilling drinks of overpriced beer in our throats. You ask us to clap along and we all have the same hands. You ask up to hold up our phones and the blackened stadium reflects your every desire, the rectangular present-day lighters swaying back and forth in a melody of communion. And the wind that forced us all to pull our hoods and caps tighter, that haunted us on our long trek here, that beat back the sounds of The Fray? You took away every last wisp of a cloud and made it disappear the moment you stepped out of the tunnel, like Moses parting the Red Sea. What is your message for us, your devoted followers, harrowed from years of longing absence, as you guide us here tonight?
I am one of seventy thousand. We are a family, and your voices our parents’ so-many-times-heard songs that we have every word memorized. You don’t need to tell us the titles, we can sing them with our eyes closed. You don’t even need the 360 screen that changes from your faces to images of Burmese imprisonment to listings of events happening right now in the world. We would still stand, clap, scream, our love as intense and committed as the thirty-four years of charity you have offered the world.
I am one of seventy thousand. I stand next to my husband who surprised me with these impossible tickets. I jump up and down every time you make your rounds, my voice tight and hoarse within an hour. When you play “Elevation” and “Beautiful Day” I grin from ear to ear, those happy days later in your bandlife, those happy days later in my life when I first heard them. When you play “One” we all sing, but I sing with tears streaming down my face, reliving my freshman year of college and circling my dorm room with that song on repeat till the floor, my feet, and my tears were worn down to desert-like hollows of pain. And “When the Streets Have No Name,” “With or Without You”? You carry me back to high school, lying on the floor of the living room, one ear to the hardwood, the rhythmic soul-searching beat and the words that tear away the pieces of my broken heart, the words that take them and fling them up into the air, sew them back together, and time after time after time, Joshua Tree one two and three, the words that save me from myself, from what I might have done. My husband? All he sees are the tears, the emotion, the me he never knew.
I am one of seventy thousand. But you are singing just for me. For the soul you saved with your music, for the movement it made in my heart, for the person I am today, with or without you.
if i could be half of who you are
the world would shine
an untouched wilderness of beauty
that no human could destroy
if i could be half
hearts held in hands would melt
kindness would seep through the air
like a feathery soft summer breeze
half of you
would be the full circle of the moon
lighting our way into the silver circle of dawn
the touch of newness fresh on our skin.
if i could be half of who you are
my nights would rest with seamless sleep
i would see the world for what it could be
never for what it is not.
i would be whole.
Inspired by Scotia Nightpoetry
it’s been fourteen years
since she didn’t die,
has lost all the weight
from last year’s birthing
(shed it like washing
silt from her hair)
and rests her hopes and doubts
on the same survivor shoulders
that carried her
from innocent adolescence
to harrowed adulthood
the same survivor shoulders
that fourteen years ago
all of our tears fell down upon,
all of our hopes and doubts
couldn’t hold up
as hair fell in chunks
onto the bottom of the bath,
her youth (our youth)
disappearing as quickly
as the drain
could carry it all away.
it’s been fourteen years
since she didn’t die.
between now and then
the scars on her face, neck
have shaped her into
the woman, the mother,
the researcher of life
who carries her hopes and doubts
on the same survivor shoulders
that led her into the life
her dreams once told her she could live.
am i really what you say?
do i hold the key you desire
to unlock unending questions?
i wish i could be the master of your domain,
the keeper of keys that would undo
every confusion you have inside you.
but as i trudge through these questions myself,
i find myself unable to unlock my own desires,
unable to open the door that leads to dreams.
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